Ardent Flame
by Red Clay
Summary: Four years after War's end, Azula has escaped! Follow her as she combats her atrophy, endures affronts from both enemies and allies, and discovers the razor wink within her mind's eye.
1. Azula's Found

Disclaimer: I do not own _Avatar: The Last Airbender_ and do not intend to profit from any of the following. It's just fun playing with other people's toys, that's all.

WARNING: Visceral Images Ahead

Enjoy.

**Chapter 1: Azula's Found**

Turtledoves came to nest in the verdant canopies and sang to the lone Waterbender on his errand to tend to the forest. He dragged his rickety wooden cart into a sunlit clearing and let it creak to a halt behind him, dropping the handle to the ground with a hollow thud. He stretched out his arms and breathed in the late morning sunshine. The ocean blue sky was framed by the wide leaves of the towering parasol trees that encircled him.

It had been a long walk, longer than usual. The forest was so thick now that there were hardly any spaces left to plant new trees. This was the last tree he'd need to plant in this forest. It both thrilled and depressed him. He and his compatriots, all former soldiers, had grown this forest from nothing, but soon it wouldn't need them anymore. Nature would take its course and new trees would grow without their help. It was wonderful to make something grow. It was his one joy in life and it helped put the horrors of war out of his mind. He shuddered to think what he would do when his work was done.

"Ha," he laughed to himself. "My work is never done. There's always something to grow." After taking off his new blue robes and tossing them at the base of a nearby tree, he pulled a shovel from the cart and scratched at the caked-on dirt with his fingernail. The engraving on the soiled, metal spade was partially obscured. It read "Nuan-(dirt in the way)-mithy." He smiled at his friend's handiwork and wondered how city life was treating her as he dug a hole half deep and three wide.

When he finished, he wheeled the cart around and tipped it towards the hole. The sapling remained defiantly rooted to the wooden wagon. "Oh, stubborn, are we?" he said to the baby tree. He snatched up his shovel again and prodded at the root bundle until it came loose and the tree slide down the sloped cart bed into the hole.

He then went about the delicate task of planting, burying the roots and adjusting the angle of the trunk, while the baby birds cooed against the soft hum of the wind through the trees. After he had finished patting down the dirt, he slipped his robes back on and looked up into the canopy. He made a smooth pushing motion that shifted the water in the greenery, which angled each individual surface towards the still rising sun. There was a crack from one of the branches and leaves rained from the canopy. "Damn, too much," he cursed at his overexertion, as delicate as it may have been.

There was another crack of branches. This time, it wasn't him. He turned and a young woman in a torn green tunic exploded out of the bushes and fell at the edge of the clearing. She slowly rose, growling it seemed, though when their eye's met, the forest keeper could see intense rage on her face. Pale blue tears streamed from her golden eyes. Heat radiated from the enraged young woman, wilting and igniting nearby vegetation. He was at a loss for words and then she screamed a tongues of red-orange fire at him.

Though he was at a loss for words, the forest tender was not at a loss for action. He leapt out of the way of the girls flaming breath and rolled to the jutting roots of a nearby parasol tree. The cart burst into an orange ball of fire and the newly planted baby tree wilted in heat of the inferno.

The Waterbender willed the trees bleed and in two seconds he had drained every bush and flower around the clearing to a black husk. He then swept every droplet of water together into a levitating wave and doused the flames and the Firebender. What water he had left, he quickly set on the girl and froze it around her tight. The ice steamed and started to melt off the hot young woman, but he was already bringing water down from the wide emerald leaves above.

For an instant, thousands of tiny beads of water shimmered like floating diamonds in the canopy. The myriad prisms split the sunlight into tiny lances of color that spread against the blackened leaves. Then they coalesced into a spiraling torrent of water that came hurtling down onto the now mortified young woman.

Rather than press her to the ground, the falling wave flopped over her entire body like a wet sheet. The Waterbender stiffened his poised form and the fluid froze sympathetically, crystallizing into what looked like a pillar of foggy diamonds.

Every leaf clenched, every groggy morning glory awoke stunned. The trees went stiff with anticipation. The dead leaves fell away from the branches. Every tree around the clearing was left bare, their skeletal branches casting a jagged mesh of shadows down on their keeper and his ice encrusted foe.

He could kill her. He could cool the ice until the air around it began to shiver.

The ice grew colder.

Or, he could do nothing and let her suffocate.

The ice grew colder.

But a flash of recognition blinked over his mind's eye.

A crack snapped across the surface of the icy tomb.

Who was this young woman?

Another crack.

Besides, he was a Tree Keeper now.

The swarthy man took in a long breath and as he let it out, the ice around his prisoner shattered and she slumped to the ground in a dazed fit of shivering, her alabaster skin flushed blue. She gathered her legs to her chest and tried to warm herself. The Tree Keeper relaxed and waved into a neutral stance only to reassume a defensive posture at the sound of a disturbance in the bushes.

Three men in battle-worn Fire Nation armor crunched through the dry bushes and out into the clearing. They looked at the shivering girl curled up in a pile of ice shards and looked back to the Tree Keeper.

They stared at each other poised, but then the armed men lowered their weapons and everyone relaxed. "Impressive," said the man brandishing a Dao blade. "We've been chasing her for quite some time, but now…" He crouched down and moved the hair from the young woman's shock-glazed eyes. The man's next words dripped from his lips like spit from a starving wolf's maw. "We've got you."

* * *

The throne room of the Fire Nation Royal Palace was far better lit, now. Ornate chandeliers hung from the ceiling and the once menacing wall of flames maintained by and surrounding the Fire Lord was replaced by several large ceramic fire pots. Smaller pots were placed about the room to light up the dark corners and give the chamber a much more welcoming atmosphere.

One of the enormous red doors at the front of the room groaned open, allowing a boney little man to squeeze through. The door shut behind him and he wondered why the guards on the other side didn't bother to help him open the door. It was a minor inconvenience, not enough to dampen his spirits, for today he was in the direct service of his lord.

"Thank you for granting me this audience with you, Fire Lord Zuko," whined the thin man in a nasally voice. "I am most humbled that you have come to value my input relating to the matter of the homeland rebellions."

"You should be thanking my advisors," echoed the Fire Lord. "They are the ones who value your input enough to place you before me." Zuko's voice filled the room and actually startled the supplicant kneeling on the floor. "Please, rise and speak freely." The man did as commanded. "I'm told that you and your staff have devised a plan to quell the rebellions."

"Yes, Fire Lord. We, that is, I and my staff of highly qualified social theorists, have come up with an ingenious and non-violent way to cut off all the supplies being fed into the Loyalist Rebellion."

"How can you call them 'loyalists,'" spat Zuko under his breath. "How will you manage this? What are the details of your plan?"

"We propose that, since their supply lines cannot be pinned down directly, we simply cut off all the supplies all together." The boney man's enthusiasm was audible.

"What?" Zuko intoned through a gathering cloud of adgitated bewilderment.

"You see, if we strictly regulate all of our imports in tandem with a government seizure and guarding of all local farmlands, we can keep goods from falling into the hands of the rebellion."

"What about the people who _aren't_ part of the rebellion? What are _they_ going to do for food?" The fires around Zuko flared with every emphasis made. The little man was too self-absorbed in his genius to notice.

"It is a simple matter of strictly rationing mercantile commerce. We have calculated the minimum subsistence level for all the age groups and family sizes and come up with numbers that will guarantee that nobody in the Fire Nation will have any extraneous food or supplies to give to the rebel forces."

Fire Lord Zuko had learned to control his anger since befriending the Avatar, the embodiment of this tolerant age, but the constant grind of bad ideas and political squabbles had been wearing on him over the past few months. Since Aang left, the situation in the Fire Nation seemed to be deteriorating. "Did it ever occur to you that those people we would be feeding are likely part of the resistance, anyway," said Zuko slowly while he massaged the bridge of his nose.

"I believe Auditor Sang brought up that point, but we concluded that the likelihood of…"

"I will not subject my people to such disrespectful treatment!" screamed the Fire Lord, causing all the flames in the room to billow up and scorch the crimson ceiling black.

"B…But, my lord," quavered the man, his eyes wide with the mortal fear of one who can't bend the elements to their will. "I… We only mean to do what is best for the nation. If that means making some sacrifices, we could… chalk it up to the costs of war."

Zuko rose to scream "The war is over" and have the man thrown from his sight, but before he could spit words or fire (or both) the double doors swung open allowing a single robed man to enter. "Master Bai Tan. Have you finally received word?"

"Yes, Fire Lord," responded the man now towering over the cowering auditor. "They have found her."

* * *

"Whataya think guys?" said the man as he stood up. He sheathed his broadsword. "We got her, thanks to this water boy here."

"We take her back with us," boomed the burly man behind the first. "Simple as that."

"Well, you know what we could do before we bring her back?"

"Kill her!" cackled the twitchy archer as he swatted at the falling dry leaves. "She's the Phoenix's Harlot, the Failed Fire Lord."

"Azula of Ozai?" queried the Tree Keeper just above a mutter.

"Hey, water boy knows some Fire Nation facts. Who taught 'cha out here in the sticks? The trees?" The archer broke into a fit of laughter. It caused the other two to laugh a little as well, though it was directed more at their friend than at the joke.

"Yes," said the Tree Keeper. "The trees are very informative, very knowledgeable about political matters."

"Hey, you back talkin' me, water boy?"

"Cool it, Fu Li," said the first man, putting his hand on the archers shoulder.

"'Cool it.' Hee heh, maybe I should ask for tips from the water boy here about cooling it." Again, the archer coughed up a fit of laughter.

After the archer regained his unique brand of composure the burly man spoke while he shackled Azula's hands behind her back. "In any case, we can't kill her. The Fire Lord wants her brought back alive."

"Yes," smiled the first man, "but he didn't stipulate the condition that she need be in."

"Cut on her, a bit?" asked Fu Li, pulling an arrow from his quiver.

"I wouldn't sully my knife with the blood of this monster," the muscular man boomed in disgust.

The first man scratched at his cheek and adjusted himself. "I was thinking something a little less messy… or not."

"Oh, hey," said Fu Li as the significance of his partners words dawned on him. "I could stand to get my knife a little messy, hee heh! Oh, she's got great lips, too."

"You know when she gets you in her mouth she'll just bite you off."

"Well, I'll stay away from her mouth then. We got her cuffed and, wow, she is really cold," said Fu Li as he ran his fingertips across Azula's cheek, wiping away a tear. "What did you do to her, water boy?"

"I made her 'cool it,'" responded the dark-skinned man. Fu Li rose and took a challenging step towards him.

"Aren't you smart," said the man with the Dao. "Smart enough to be on your way, I hope." He placed his hand on his sword handle obviously to show the Waterbender the color of his intent.

"I assume there's a reward for her capture."

"We are on official business from Fire Lord Zuko himself," yelled the hulking man over the still shivering Azula. His deep voice was absorbed by the leafless trees that surrounded them.

"We are his 'instruments of justice,' as he so regally put it," the first man clarified.

"This is none of your concern, boy!"

"You have _got_ to stop calling me 'boy,'" sighed the Tree Keeper.

"Or what?" snapped Fu Li.

"Or I'll do to you what I did to her."

"Is that a threat?"

"Sounded like a threat to me," said the first man as he slowly drew his sword. "A challenge for our prize."

"Thick… why bother?" mumbled the Tree Keeper, putting up his hands.

"Oh, it's on now, water boy!" and with that Fu Li took the arrow in his hand and shot it. In the instant it reached him, the Tree Keeper managed to deflect the bolt with his forearm. It left a long cut, but it was better than an arrow in the face. Doubt flooded his mind and began curdling into fear. He knew he couldn't dodge another bolt, and that, even if he did bend more water from the greenery, he would be a pincushion before he could strike back at his opponents.

The archer threaded two more arrows onto his bowstring. "Where's your precious water, huh, water boy? We're inland, really far inland. There ain't nothin' for you to bend out-" The archer's cackling tirade was shut up by a cone of dense earth, shooting up and encasing him.

The Waterbender, swordsman, and hulking man jumped back and turned in unison toward the source of the attack. At the edge of the clearing stood a tattered black robe, the green and gold coin of the Earth Kingdom adorning its chest. Hands plated with crumbling stone were raised before a chiseled face pained by exhaustion.

"So, you're bones aren't completely splintered," chuckled the muscular bounty hunter. "You're made of sterner stuff than your comRAAAHGH!" He was suddenly shackled with bar chains springing with sentient intent from the depths of the new agents wide sleeves. His wrists suddenly bound, the hunter couldn't block the brick of dense stone swiftly kicked at his face. The block of hardened soil shattered on his forehead, rattling his brain like a pickle in a jar, and the huge figure tipped forward, crashing into an unconscious heap.

A half second later, the man with the Dao blade slashed up at his new, well armed foe. The cut would have spilled the man's innards from his dark cloak like a school of fish let from an engorged net, but the stone fisted man had somehow willed his shackles to decouple from within his robes and he had caught the blade just as it kissed the thread of his cloak. Satisfaction found its way onto his face, and, with both stone-gloved hands, he crumpled the blade like a leaf of gold foil. But it proved a premature and fatal display of dominance. The man with the now crinkled sword produced a dagger and, in one fluid motion, stuck it in his foe's neck.

The next instant, the swordsman was cold. Frozen. Completely encased in a thick crust of ice. The world was prismatic through the hoary sheet: a broken mirror of cracked and clashing half-images. He saw repeated segments of the robed opponent fall to the ground, but there was no satisfaction, only ten dark faces glowering at him through the ice.

The clearing was much bigger now. A ring of dry bark and mulch was all that was left of the few trees the Tree Keeper had to sacrifice to win his battles. Before him stood the swordsman, frozen with his dagger raised, his face ecstatic with the thrill of victory. At his feet, the robed man bled fluently from his neck. He was trying to speak as he drown in his own blood.

When his bright green eyes met the Tree Keeper's, he gurgled twice more, "P-P…Pri…"

The next moment was quiet. All was reverently still.

Then the Tree Keeper walked over to the sapling that still stood in the center of the clearing and put his hands on its base. He inhaled and exhaled three times, slowly drawing up ground water. Then, he ran his hands up its trunk and through its branches. The tree's wilted leaves uncurled slightly, but the damage was done. He hoped the damage wasn't terminal.

That done, he walked over to the manacled young woman. She was shivering far less, apparently having gone unconscious. "Come on," he said as he slung her over his back. "I'm not going let you freeze to death in the middle of summer," and with that he walked off into the woods, leaving his other three adversaries frozen in the sunshine.

* * *

"What do you mean they haven't caught her yet?" bellowed the Fire Lord. "You just said that our agents found her."

"They found her, my lord, but…" Bai Tan looked down at the small man standing beneath him, who wore a look of fear and confusion. "Auditor Jiro, you may be on your way now."

The auditor's face morphed to outrage. "I have been waiting six months to present this plan to the Fire Lord. This is my time, sir."

"Why didn't they capture her?" Zuko asked Bai Tan, ignoring the lowly auditor's presence.

Bai Tan did the same, answering his lord. "The group that caught up with her and her rescuers tracked them to the western coast of the Earth Kingdom and, under cover of darkness, they killed the renegade Dai Li that helped her escape. Unfortunately, when the three men finally caught up with the princess, herself, she was already caught, or at least subdued."

"What? By who?"

"Apparently some Waterbender in the forest had subdued her."

"Then I'll ask again. Why didn't they capture her!" asked Zuko, emphasizing each word.

"They were beaten by this man and another, one of her saviors. One of our agents didn't survive. Frozen in a block of ice. The Waterbender took her."

Zuko was visibly crestfallen. He slumped into his thoroughly cushioned throne and cradled his head in his hands. "How could this happen?"

"Would you like to hear my theory, lord?" said Bai Tan stepping forward.

"Of course I want to hear the theories of my top advisor. What good are you otherwise!"

Bai Tan took no visable offense at the scathing tone. "As you say, my lord. I am one of many, very capable men," said the stately counselor, feigning sincere humility, masterfully. Zuko had no wherewithal or time to identify any subliminal spite before his advisor reported: "I believe that this man was their contact in the Earth Kingdom. That is to say, the Dai Li meant to get your sister as far as they did and hand her off to this man in order to break the trail. Lucky for us, our agents survived to see this."

"Lucky? You said he killed one of them."

"Yes, but our men were left alive. Well, two of them, anyway, but you are right to be concerned. This man is very dangerous. One of the agents involved was a former member of the Yu Yan Archers, the elite military group you had expunged three years ago. He fired on the bender at nearly point blank range and the Waterbender was quick enough to deflect it, even without the use of his bending."

"Are you sure your agent isn't just exaggerating this Waterbender's prowess for the sake of his pride."

"No, Fire Lord. The Yu Yan are… were very disciplined and not inclined to invent facts to save face. My lord, we must send out more resources to capture your sister. I fear we may be dealing with a professional here."

"A professional what?"

"Until I have more information, my lord, I can't give you accurate counsel."

Zuko slammed his fist against the thrones armrest. "Well then do what needs to be done!" he roared , but he paused before exiting. The Fire Lord spoke without turning. "I apologize for that insult earlier, Master Bai Tan. Your service is never in question."

"As you say, my lord," the elder man said humbly before his lord disappeared beyond a heavy rouge curtain.

Bai Tan smiled to himself, exhaled strongly, and then looked down at the awestruck Jiro. "You will not repeat anything you just heard to anyone, ever." Jiro nodded. "If you do, I'll hear about it." Jiro nodded again more vigorously. "Leave. We will consider your plan and get back to you in about a month." The auditor's face lit up. Not only would his plan be received for consideration, but it was being processed in an extremely expedient manner. He clamored out of the room, leaving Bai Tan alone in the flickering firelight.


	2. Introductions

Note to Reader: contains less action and more exposition. Hey, characters got to develop some how. It's still magical and it gets better. I promise. It's a relatively short chapter, anyway.

**Chapter 2: Introductions**

A cloud of sparks rose as the wood in the campfire shifted and fell. The flame was diminishing, but the coals still glowed in the cold of the night. Azula shifted and awoke with her face in the dirt. She rolled over and lay on her arms. They were still shackled behind her back.

"Looks like you're okay. Figured you would be." Her captor was seated across from her with his legs crossed and his eyes fixed on her. "Firebender's heat up very well."

Azula was still very groggy, but she could make out the man's face just fine. He was obviously from one of the Water Tribes, though she couldn't identify which. His deep cobalt eyes were two shimmering pools set in swarthy skin.

"So, I'm Qilaq," said the man. "It means sky." Azula remained silent. "I suppose you don't have to introduce yourself. I already know who you are."

"And you intend to collect on my bounty," seethed the former princess of the Fire Nation.

"No, no I don't," replied Qilaq without hesitation.

Azula's eyes narrowed. She was very good at knowing when people were lying and, from the way she read his voice, either he was sincere or he was as good a liar as she was. "Then what are you doing?" she queried.

"Helping you. Want something to eat?"

"Leaving me shackled is not helping."

"Well, I'm not stupid. I'm aware of your rather unsavory reputation as the Phoenix's Harlot. Betrayer of her nation. Banisher of her court…" Qilaq stopped when he noticed that the bound Firebender was literally steaming. "Understand," he tried to rally, "I didn't want you coming to and shooting fire into my face."

"Well, I've come to. You can get these off me now," she snapped, struggling against her bonds.

"I don't have the key. That guy who shackled you still has it."

"I'm not stupid either," she snapped, again. "I know you can freeze these off of me, so do it!"

The Waterbender smiled and laughed under his breath. This just made Azula all the more furious, but it didn't faze him. Anger seemed like her natural state, so there was nothing for it. "Don't worry, you're safe. Try and get some sleep and we'll start out towards the town in the morning," and with that he turned his back on the steaming woman and drifted into a calm sleep.

Azula's left eye twitched a bit and then she let out a breath and calmed herself. She sat in the waning light of the campfire and waited until she was sure that her kind captor was out. During that time, she thought about her current situation and replayed the events of the past few days back in her head.

Those Dai Li that broke her out of prison and ferried her to the Earth Kingdom, the same men whom she had banished for no other reason than her own distrust, were dead now. They had betrayed their king, their master and their entire kingdom - their entire culture - for her and she betrayed them in kind. Karma, supposedly. Yet they still returned and gave their lives to free her from a lifetime of wasting away in prison. They truly were loyal to her. The least she could do was be loyal to their memory and honor their sacrifice by avenging them against their killers.

She let out another breath and the dying fire flared slightly. It was barely a flicker, but she could probably stoke it enough to push it from its coals and set it upon the sleeping Waterbender.

She inhaled, the fire shrank. She exhaled, the flame grew. Once more. She inhaled the flame was poised and…

She let it die. The Waterbender wasn't her enemy. In fact, he had saved her from her real enemies. The least she could do was leave him in peace. She rolled over on her side, pulled her knees as close as she could to her chest and then pulled her shackled hands under her feet. With her hands in front of her now, she stood up in the pitch dark of the looming forest and padded away into the night.

* * *

_Da Tan,_

_I'm relieved to hear that your encounter with that Waterbender left you unharmed. The Fire Lord was pleased to hear your report relating your progress in tracking down the fugitive. He has allocated more resources to the capture effort, as you can plainly see. The two bags of gold should keep you well supplied through the week, until your next allotment arrives. Please exercise some restraint when spending the money for "entertainment" purposes, which I know you'll be doing. _

_Remember to keep your mission as covert as possible and, when you do capture her, make sure I am the first to hear of it. There has to be something else in all of this._

_Concerning resources, you have also been given carte blanche to recruit some very special reinforcements to your cause. Contained is all you'll need to procure some of these allies. Be quick and don't underestimate this man traveling with the fugitive. I suppose I don't need to tell you, but just try to stay safe. You're the only brother I have left._

_Sincerely,_

_Bai Tan Zong_

_Head of Internal Affairs_

_Head Royal Advisor_

"That man hasn't been 'sincere' in his life," Da Tan said to himself, shuffling the papers in his hand.

"So what's the move?" asked Fu Li, weighing the two sacks of gold with a twinkle in his eye.

The towering mass of muscle and bone smiled and said, "Fu Li, we're going to _procure_ some company."

* * *

Azula couldn't see anything in the dark, though she knew that if she started a torch it would give away her position and stealth was paramount for a recognizable fugitive. Especially when that fugitive was the "Phoenix's Harlot." She despised that title to no end.

She tripped over another root and gave into her mounting tension, swearing aloud. It was less pain and more frustration and with her hands bound she was much more prone to lose her balance, which was all the more frustrating.

There was a sound in the bushes. Azula stopped and pricked up her ears. There it was again. She looked around, panicked and then broke into a run. She could feel something stalking her, unseen beyond the horrid shadows of the black forest. Once again she tripped over a branch, but this time she fell head over foot and ground to a halt looking up into the trees.

"You're just running deeper into the fo-" but Qilaq was cut off by the arch of fire kicked at him when the Firebender spun herself upright. He jumped behind a tree and let the flame break on its sturdy trunk. The bark smoldered, but didn't burn. "Calm down, woman, it's just me."

"Just you?" Azula panted, trying to catch her breath. "And did you just refer to me as 'woman?'"

"What, you aren't a woman? Beside the point. Look, you're just gonna get lost in these woods. I helped grow them and even I get lost in them sometimes."

"I'll be safer lost," she said turning away from him. He advanced a step and she whipped around, raising her shackled hands at him menacingly. "Don't you dare!" she threatened.

"Or you'll what?" He called her bluff. He could beat her in a fight and they both knew it.

"Why?" she asked.

"Why? Well… because I see that you need help and I'm a helping kind of guy. Also, I don't want you burning down my forest," he said pointing behind him at the scorch mark she left on the nearby tree. They stood face to face in the dark for a very long time. The silence annoyed Azula to no end. It didn't seem to annoy the macro gardener and that annoyed her even more. She had to drop her hands after a moment because of the heavy metal digging into her wrists. The tree keeper seemed to notice her discomfort, even though he could barley make out her silhouette.

He walked over to her and grabbed up her manacles. "Hold still?" he commanded. "I'm going to try and open these things. I can't just freeze them off of you. If it's cold enough to freeze metal to shards, what do you think it'll do to your soft, boney wrists, so…" he turned the sturdy, fire-proof hunk of metal over and found the keyhole. Then he struck out his arm with his hand in a point and water from the air condensed around his finger. Pointing his finger at the lock, the water slowly extended into the hole and the infinitesimal sound of moving switches filled the air like the sound of falling snow. After a moment, he froze the water in the hole. "Here's hoping," he said, looking up at Azula and turning the key of ice.

It worked and the lock opened. "If I want you to trust me, I suppose I have to trust you, too." He took a step back and watched her. She didn't try to shoot fire or lightning at him, which was a good sign. She just stood there, rubbing her raw wrists. "Here, let me heal those up," he said, reaching out to her.

"Don't touch me again!" she snapped and pulled her hands away from him. "I hate to break it to you, but I still don't trust _you_. You haven't been straight with me, I can tell," she lied.

"I have been nothing but straight with you," he responded deadpanned.

"But I do want to get out of this forest and you seem to think you can get me out."

"Get both of us out, I think."

Azula let out a sigh and prepared herself to say something she had never said before in her entire life. "You lead and I'll follow." Her tone was emotionless, but the shear strain of pronouncing those words in that order felt like someone was rearranging all her organs by color. She suppressed the feeling and tried to keep her expression from betraying any evidence of the effect on her.

"Fine," said the chipper tree keeper. "It'll take us about half a day to get into town. And the suns just coming up." Indeed, the sun was coming up. The twilight was faint, but they could make out each others faces well enough. She noticed he was grinning. Before she could command him to wipe that stupid expression off his face he turned around and started off. "You aren't gonna shoot fire up my ass, are you?" he asked, not looking back.

"We'll see," said the Firebender coldly.

"I hate trust," Qilaq said as he led the way he thought - and hoped - was out of the forest.

* * *

Not too far away, on the island of Kiyoshi, red men meet with green shadows.


	3. Friends and Allies

Warning: Nudity. (That should keep you reading.)

**Chapter 3: Friends and Allies**

The benders arrived in a tiny town and navigated the back alleys and side streets doing their best to avoid attention. Someone might recognize the fugitive princess and then it would be nothing but "guards, guards!" and running and inevitable capture. Lucky for them both, she was dressed in standard Earth Kingdom attire, so they didn't look all that suspicious. A few people even offered friendly greetings to the two of them. It wracked both their nerves to no end, but they were good at keeping those feelings off their faces.

Several insincere smiles later, the two of them stopped in front of a one level compound that smelled like a dry swamp. Azula held her nose.

"You get used to it," Qilaq said, laughing at the reaction that he had seen from passers-by a thousand times. "Lim, you in?" he called out as he opened the door. "Come on in," he said to his fiery guest. It was a large room with a desk near the door and a dining table in the corner. A few rickety pieces of furniture made their homes in seemingly random places and potted plants clogged up every spare space and every window, tinting the light coming into the room with a rich green hue.

"What is making it smell like… this? Like a komodo-rhino's underbelly."

"It's the plants, and it's not that bad. Trust me, I know what a komodo-rhino smells like."

"I'm sure you do," Azula said, still holding her nose.

"This is the storage facility for the Western Reforestation Effort. One of them, anyway. Tons of baby trees and other plants in the back, if you'd like to see."

"I'll pass," she said looking around the room, poking at plants and scratching at the peeling walls. "So, you live here?"

"Yep. Beats living in barracks, any day."

"Barracks? You were a solider?" she asked with an almost sincere intrigue.

"Yes I was, ah…" he sighed as he looked out the window. "Hear that?" Azula did hear something. It was the soft plinking of rain on the roof. Qilaq parted some leaves in front of a window and then turned to Azula. "So, do you want a bath?"

The question befuddled her a bit but she turned her head and reluctantly said yes. She hadn't bathed since a week before the jailbreak and getting thoroughly clean would help her feel like her old-self again. He brought her into a small room with a tub. It was little more than a closet. Actually, it _was_ a closet. There was no water pump or tributary running through the room. Azula realized that she wasn't in the Royal Palace anymore, but this place didn't even have indoor plumbing. It was so uncivilized. At least there was a window, but that defeated the purpose: a bathroom was supposed to be private.

Qilaq opened the window just above the bathtub and then started waving his arms from the window to the tub in smooth, circuitous arcs. Rain water started flowing in tiny streams through the window and into the tub. Slowly, the tub began to fill.

"You don't expect me to bathe in that?" she scoffed. "I might as well just go run around in the rain naked."

"Ah, but that would draw a lot of unwanted attention," said the still Waterbending Qilaq. "Rain water in the Earth Kingdom is far cleaner than it is in the Fire Nation because there aren't many factories spewing smoke into the air, though that may change pretty soon. It's even cleaner than the water in the tributaries and aquifers because it's been filtered by evaporation." He was drawing in water faster now and his breath was becoming more labored. After another minute, the tub was filled to the brim. He stopped his set, closed the window, and sat on the edge of the tub as though he were waiting for something. "All ready for you. Dive in."

Azula tested the water with her finger. "It's freezing!"

"It's cold, but it isn't _freezing_. I could make it freeze." Azula narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm kidding. Come on, you're a Firebender. If you want it hot, make it hot."

The Firebender was perfectly aware of this fact, but she felt the need to give the man a hard time every chance she got. She stood there for a moment and then realized that Qilaq wasn't leaving. "Do you intend to sit there the whole time?"

"Maybe," he said with a smirk.

"Leave!" she said firmly.

"And what if I don't leave?"

"Then I'll knock you unconscious and be finished and clothed before you wake up."

"Alright then, I'm out. Take all the time you want. Need anything, give a holler," said the Waterbender as he exited the room. The fiery woman pulled the door shut firmly behind him, almost skinning his back as he left.

Azula stripped off her haggard robes and tested the water again. It may as well have been ice. She stepped into it slowly, all her muscles tensing up and all her hairs standing erect. After she managed to sit down - the (second) hardest part being getting the water past her nipples, which shot out like daggers when the frigid water reached them - she steepled her fingers and let out three successive breaths. The last one flared into a small flame and the water began to warm up and then started to steam. For the first time in a week, she was relaxed and, for some reason, she actually felt safe in the smelly little storage shed that her host called home.

Meanwhile, out in the living area, Qilaq was tending to one of the many, many plants around the room, when he heard someone outside the door.

"Figures the rain lets up when I make it home," sounded the voice of a perturbed man. He fiddled with the door and then came into the room, soaked to the bone. "Double Q, hey, you're back."

"Hey, Lim. Enjoying the weather?" Double Q asked his roommate.

"Oh, it's a treat. I was trying to see if I could catch you coming back into town. This came for you," said Lim, pulling a scroll out of his poncho. Qilaq tried to snatch it up, but his friend pulled it away before he could grab it. "Hey, don't snatch," scolded Lim. The Waterbender rolled his eyes and put out his hand, where Lim soon placed the scroll. "Someone's coming to see you."

"Yes, I can see that," Qilaq said as he read.

"Probably about reassignment. You planted your last tree yesterday, right?"

The tree keeper sighed and threw the scroll into an empty chair. "Yeah," he breathed with a heavy heart.

"So all went well?" asked Lim while he hung up his dripping rainwear.

"No, I was attacked," Qilaq said, showing his friend his torn sleeve and healing cut. "I had to wreck a couple parasols and some shrubs."

"'Wreck?' Wreck how?"

"Well, the clearing's a lot bigger now. Lots of room for that little guy to grow."

"Dammit guy, you know we can't go out there and fix those, now. We're done with that quadrant, with that whole forest. We're moving on."

"I know. At least I saved the baby, though."

"Well, there's that."

There was a hard knock at the door. "Hey, that must be the guy," Lim conjectured.

"Why didn't they just reassign me in the letter?" questioned the tree keeper as he walked to the door.

"Don't know. Maybe it's too important for them to write it down," further conjectured the other tree keeper. Qilaq opened the door to a man about his height, with pleated hair and steely eyes. "Tree Keeper Qilaq?" he rasped.

"Yes," responded the tree keeper narrowing his vision. This man wasn't a messenger from the military or the Office of the W.R.E. He was from somewhere else, though Qilaq hadn't the foggiest where that somewhere was.

"We must speak in private."

"Sure, we can go into the storage yard," and with that the tree keeper lead his second guest of the evening through a heavy door at the back of the room. "Oh, wait here one moment," he said and shut the door on the stranger. "Lim," Qilaq said turning to his roommate who had just put his feet up. "I brought someone home with me."

"Who?"

"A girl."

"A girl?" Lim parroted with something akin to astonishment.

"Well, a woman, but yeah, she's female."

"Is she hot?"

"Oh yeah, she's hot. She's in the bathroom cleaning up, so don't freak out if you hear some noises."

"Have ya done anything with her yet?" asked Lim eagerly.

"No," Qilaq said, sounding annoyed. "Go back to your lounging and don't bug her," and, with that, he went behind the door to talk with his mysterious guest.

"Take your time," Lim called after his compatriot. When he was sure he was gone, he got up and quietly padded over to the bathroom door.

On the other side of the thin wooden partition, Azula had been steaming in a hot spring paradise of her own making. The noise beyond the four walls of the bathroom faded from her conscious mind, leaving her in a primal state of contentment. Her thoughts of revenge and fear of capture all floated away on wafts of steam. After she felt the water cooling down, she dunked herself one more time and then looked down at her tattered Earth Peasant rags. She cringed at the thought of putting those dirty, frayed clothes on her pure, now clean, alabaster skin again. She may not have been able to dress like royalty anymore, but she could at least dress in clean, undamaged clothing.

She thought to call for the Waterbender, but she hesitated. She couldn't remember his name. She remembered him saying it once when he introduced himself, properly, she noted. What was his name? It had a "K" or something in it. It was very rough, something like you would expect from a savage, tribal name. It remained an elusive ether in her memory.

"Hello," she finally called, knowing he was nearby.

"Hello," responded a voice that clearly did not belong to the Waterbender. She cursed herself for letting her awareness slip. She was so vulnerable and she could never afford to be vulnerable, not anymore.

"Who in blazes are you?" she demanded, the humor of her choice in words not totally escaping her.

"I'm Lim. I'm Qilaq's roommate. You need something?" There was sliminess in the last thing he said. Azula keyed in on it, but she remembered the Waterbender calling for his roommate earlier and the name matched the name in her memory. And now she recalled her host's name: Qilaq. She wouldn't forget it again. She would remain vigilant and sharp forevermore in order to survive. Right now, though, she needed clothes to survive.

"I need some clothes," she said through the door.

"Clothes? You don't need clothes, heh," said the voice beyond the door. Azula was right about the sliminess.

"Never mind," she said exasperated. She looked over in the corner and noticed a small chest of drawers she hadn't seen before. She got out of the tub and walked over to it. The first drawer she opened had clean white linen in it. While she used the cloth to dry herself, she opened the second drawer. In it was a blue robe. She pulled it out. It was clean, but it was also Water Tribe.

A vision of shame and rage flared up in her mind like a stoked ember. She stared at the attire with meditative focus for a good, long minute. Standing there, her firm curves dripping in the open air, she came to a realization: the best way to hide is in plain sight. Nobody would suspect the proud former Fire Princess to wear the skin of her greatest enemy. It would be the last thing they would look for and, therefore, the perfect disguise. Azula may have been proud, but her intelligence allowed her to overcome that hubris. That is what made her so deadly. She could adapt and change and come back to finish off those who had wronged her when and in a way they least suspected. A crooked smile creased her cheek. She was back in form. She was herself again.

After ripping the linen into under wraps and dressing in the skin of her enemy, she picked something out of a pocket in one of her dirty earth kingdom robes and then went to the exit the room. She pushed on the door, but there was some resistance and then the sound of feet shuffling away. She opened the door, expecting to see the other tree keeper sitting nonchalantly in some awkward position across the room. He was, his feet in a plant and his arms crossed. He looked like he was counting the cracks in the ceiling.

Azula now noticed there was leaking all over the place, though the rain outside had stopped. Now she realized that the arrangement of the plants around the room was not random. Each pot was beneath a crack and the water leaking in was sprinkling the plants. The pragmatic genius of the whole thing impressed her.

"Well, feeling refreshed?" said Lim pulling his feet out of a bouquet of crimson fire lilies covered with azure splotches. He had crushed it, but he didn't seem to care. Azula remained silent and gave the man a sideways glance. "They look good on you," he said, pointing to her borrowed robes. "I mean, they're DQ's old robes, but you make them sexy."

The once Fire Nation Princess was educated in a myriad of arts and practical studies by the greatest masters her nation had to offer, and yet, despite all her knowledge of martial arts and information extraction, she had never learned how to flirt. She mused that it must have been something that you can only discover through experience. It was obvious he was flirting with her, but how would she respond to his advances? She followed her instinct and, completely by accident, she acted more seductively coy than any other temptress could have ever intentionally behaved.

Her literal disinterest in the malnourished Lim drew her attention to a small scroll sitting in a chair. It was short and simple. It had a date and time and instructions to be at the compound at said time. The young woman quizzed over its significance. It had Qilaq's name and title on it and a meeting time specified. She wondered where he was, but before she could wonder anymore, something on the wall caught her eye.

Hanging on two hooks was a worn looking Jian with a black blade. She could swear she recognized it from somewhere. She had the feeling of knowing it intimately, but she couldn't place the event in her memory.

"Cool, huh?" said Lim standing up. "DQ found it buried in the wasteland while we were clearing away the ash. It's made of some weird metal. We had it appraised but it's not worth much, so we kept it for decoration. It's really crapily made or at least in crappy condition. Still, looks kinda cool, huh?" The man rubbed his shoulder and let his next words fall from his lips like drops of molasses. "So, you like _swords_?"

When Azula heard those words she nearly turned and incinerated the cretin, but she stopped and reminded herself that this incident and this idiot had nothing to do with what happened in the forest. Instead, she used this opportunity to try her hand at flirting.

"As a matter of fact, my brother is a master swordsman," said the opportunistic temptress in dulcet tones. She was sending all the right body signals, she thought, - hand on cocked hip, bust out, bat eyelashes, etc. - but the man just looked at her with a confused look, bordering on disgust.

"Kinky," he smiled after a moment. "I like that, I think." Lim still looked and sounded confused.

The door at the back of the room opened. Both Azula and Lim turned to see the steely-eyed man walked straight out the front door without so much as acknowledging their presence. After the man left Qilaq slowly walked into the room and dropped himself into a chair. His face drooped and he said nothing.

"Who was that?" asked Azula with a hint of suspicion. She still didn't trust the Waterbender.

"Reassignment," responded Qilaq without looking up.

"Care to elaborate?"

"No." There wasn't a hint of emotion in his tone. Azula hadn't known him for very long, but she noticed this was far from his usual glib demeanor, denoting that something was wrong. He didn't seem to want to talk about it and she didn't want - or care - to press him. "You look good," Qilaq said when he glanced at the Firebender in his old water tribe robes. She didn't know how to respond to the offhanded comment, so she didn't.

The room stayed silent for hours after the stranger had left. Lim just sat around and fiddled, sometimes scribbling on some paper work at the desk. He would occasionally catch Azula's gaze and flick his eyebrows at her. She didn't care. She just noshed on some salted mystery-meat that she had found in a cupboard. She was too hungry to care what or how old it was.

All the while, she watched Qilaq. He was extremely somber and didn't seem to even be aware that there were others in the room with him. Occasionally he would get up and tend to a plant or look out the window or move to another chair, but nothing more.

Night fell and soon the swampy air of the compound was filled with the smell of roasting meat. Lim was cooking up some steaks he bought from a market a town over about three days earlier. There was just enough for three, he noted, and took extra special care to represent his great cooking prowess to their lady guest. Lim was hoping that she would see her way to being his lady friend and he figured the best way to her heart was through her stomach. That route always worked to please him, he thought.

"Steak's almost ready guys," he said over the stove. "Get set up at the table." Qilaq and Azula both moved to the table wordlessly as Lim brought out three plates covered with steaming meat and some unidentifiable beige mush. Qilaq sat across from Azula and Lim set his plate next to her. "Well, I don't mean to brag, but I will and say this is probably the best piece of cooked meat you're ever gonna have in your life."

Azula was skeptical. She came from a royal family, after all.

There was something poking at her chest and she remembered that she had put a small piece of jewelry in the fold of the robe. She pulled it and examined it. It was a small gold brooch in the shape of her country's flame insignia. One of the Dai Li warriors had given it to her while they sailed to the Earth Kingdom. She wracked her brain, but couldn't remember the man's name.

A fork clattered onto the wooden floor. Azula looked up and saw Lim had risen from his chair and was staring at her wide-eyed. "You… you're a…" he stuttered. The surprise on his face was replaced with malice. "Whore!" he shouted. "You're a Red Whore!" Now Azula was the one with the look of surprise.

"Lim, calm down," Qilaq said to his roommate as calmly as he could.

"Why did you bring a Red Slut into my home?"

"It's our home, Lim. Calm down."

"No! She is a Fire Nation whore," raged the tree keeper who was just a moment ago enamored with the girl. "I can see it now. It is so, damned obvious, the smug, selfish bitch." Lim pointed at the broach in Azula's hand and then put his finger straight in her face, which caused her to stand up and back up. Lim was breathing heavy and the sound of cracking masonry filled the room.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Azula defended. "I'm a proud citizen of the Earth Kingdom."

"Shut your filthy mouth, whore! You think I'm an idiot! That's a Fire Nation pin!"

"I'm…" Azula was having trouble fabricating lies, which was a new experience for her. A feeling of complete surprise and subverted outrage was clouding her thoughts.

"Lim," Qilaq said standing up as well. "Calm down or you'll bend this whole place to the ground. You said it yourself, this building isn't that well put together. So she's Fire Nation."

The Earthbender turned on his compatriot. "What are you saying? How can you defend this whore? She's one of _them_: a Red Menace. They scarred our land and subjected our people to slavery for decades. What… have you forgotten the war? Have you forgotten all the people, all the friends that those monsters killed? Those faceless hunks of fire spewing steel."

"She obviously has a face, Lim. She's human just like…"

"No!" interrupted the bellowing tree keeper. "She is nothing like me. She comes from a country full of monsters and sheep. Sheep willing to stand idly by while their damned divine figurehead glasses an entire race. No, don't you dare compare me to that whore!"

It was at this point that Azula threw a stiff, straight punch and knocked Lim clean out. The cracking around the room stop and Qilaq looked from his friend on the floor and then to the scowling young woman.

"He deserves worse," Azula said to her still conscious host.

"I'm not so sure," he responded. Before Azula could respond he was on his way to the front door. "Come on. We're going."

"What? Where?"

"To Ba Sing Se."

"Why?"

"Because we have to keep moving if we want to keep from getting caught," and with that they left. As they moved down the darkened streets of the town, painted eyes watched them from the shadows.


	4. Leaving the Conflict

ACTION: With the help of her new friend, Azula faces an old one.

Note to Reader: As you know, writing does not happen from beginning to end. While I work on the parts that you see in continuity, I'm constantly noting later events and dialogues. As a result, the next chapter may take a little while to come out, but bear with me loyal readers. I promise to see this story through to its conclusion.

**Chapter 4: Leaving the Conflict**

The Fire Lord's head advisor meandered through the palace garden, squeezing and grinding two pebbles he had picked up into perfect spheres. It helped him think and he had a lot of thinking to do. The insurgence was becoming far more aggressive. Before, the attacks were focused on military and industrial complexes, but now the attacks had degenerated into out and out acts of terrorism. They would bomb tea shops and other civilian establishments with no discrimination against who they killed.

This random violence erupting across the nation was taking a visible toll on the Fire Lord's constitution and Bai Tan was taking careful notice. Just yesterday, a family of four, a retired Fire Navy sailor of fifty, and a young man buying fruit for his mother were all burnt to death when an insurgent, posing as a merchant, immolated himself while he was selling to his victims. What humored Bai Tan was that the insurgent may not even have been _posing_ as a merchant.

"Firebenders," mused the Fire Lords advisor as he walked across the softly arched bridge spanning the tranquil stream. There was a white tree with a stone bench beneath that provided adequate shade from the intense heat of the Fire Nation summer. He didn't know what kind of tree it was, but he was fascinated by the aesthetic of its needles, which always grew in groups of five.

"They are very… explosive, in their tempers," he soliloquized. "It makes them dangerous, passionate and easy to control. A charismatic leader could capture the hearts and minds of the ignorant masses and keep them going, even through _years_ of bloody civil combat. So long as both sides maintain hope for a better tomorrow, they will continue to fight. They will continue to smolder, but they won't burn, not completely."

"Their Leader, a prodigal son returned as a savior from the tyranny of his own father, will keep the people alive through this rebellion and even beyond that. Eventually they will come to terms with themselves and douse the flames of their hatred. He can keep them alive, if he can stay his own fury."

After he ground his two now spherical stones around and against one another for a few minutes, he heard footsteps approaching. He looked and saw a short mass of armor clanking across the bridge. The mass of armor removed its stylishly spiked helmet to reveal a knot-topped young man with a scar on the point of his chin. "Sir," he saluted, "You sent for me, sir?"

"Yes, young Naoki. I wanted to see you regarding your duties."

"My duties, sir?" the lad quavered.

"I can assure you, you are in no trouble. I merely wish to gain a first hand knowledge of how the palace and military staff are getting on with their tasks. It's a random sampling technique that served me well in my time as an advisor in the Earth Kingdom."

"Oh, did it, sir?" he quavered with a now suspicious tinge.

"Indeed, it did. You've been assigned to guard duty at the Capital City Prison as of late, correct?"

"Yes, sir." The guard was trying to figure out what he had done and at the same time wondered where his superior was going with this line of questioning.

"In that time, have you guarded within the tower?" Bai Tan already knew the answer.

"Yes, sir. I'm sure you would already be aware of that, seeing as how you are also the head of internal affairs, sir."

The Head of Internal Affairs was impressed, but not surprised. He had chosen well, maybe too well. "You're a smart young man. I'll come to the point. You've guarded the cell of former Fire Lord Ozai. Have you observed any visitors to this cell?"

"As a matter of fact, sir, the Fire Lord himself, er, that is, Fire Lord Zuko," he stuttered, "He's visited with his father a couple times since my assignment there."

"Was the security tight?"

"Oh, of course, sir. The Fire Lord was guarded very closely, eh…" putting the situation into words was starting to tax the young mans mind.

"I understand, son. As a matter of interest, can you recall what they talked about?" Naoki's strain at recollection was visible on his scarred face. "It may be a further matter of security. Come now, what do you recall?"

"Well," the guard started, "I do remember the… Fire Lord Zuko raising his voice quite a bit. Fire Lord, I mean, former Fire Lord…"

"The prisoner. It's proper to call him that now."

"Yes, sir. The prisoner would tease the Fire Lord and tell him that he didn't know where his mother was." Bai Tan's ground the stones in his clenched fist. "I don't remember hearing anything else. I wasn't really paying attention." Naoki offered a weak laugh and the royal advisor nearly crushed the two stone spheres in his grip.

"Interesting. Are you happy in your work, Naoki?"

"Oh, yes, sir."

"I'll be plain with you, soldier. These are dangerous times we live in and the Fire Lord needs good men at his side, protecting him at all times. Men who can be counted as trustworthy. Honest men," the last words caused the corner of Bai Tan's mouth to flick. "I am promoting you to the Royal Guard. You will protect the Fire Lord and you will report directly to me. You will receive further instructions outside. I thank you for your perspective on matters. You may go now.

"Sir, if I may, do you really think the Fire Lord is in danger?"

The faintest hint of a smile creased onto Bai Tans cheek. "Oh, no. As long as honest men like you surround him, he is completely safe. But, in the interest of public interest and security in particular, do not repeat any of this to anyone else."

"Oh, yes sir, of course," said the young guard with an elevate volume.

"Carry on, Naoki, and stay safe."

"Sir! For the Honor of the Fire Nation!" and with a stiff salute the young man walked back across the bridge putting his helmet back on.

"Oh, and Naoki," the older man said to the now Royal Guard. "Pay attention." Naoki nodded and Bai Tan waited until the young man was gone from the garden before he vocalized further.

"I will know more. The prodigal son is flawed, no doubt. He has desire. He is passionate. He will burn his people to ash." While speaking these last few words the Head Advisor to the Fire Lord let his fist unclench and the dust that was once two stones trickled to the ground.

The summer sun had baked the town completely dry before it set. There was virtually no evidence of the shower earlier in the day. The waxing half-moon cast its gentle light upon the town. Qilaq looked up to the heavenly body and felt comfort in seeing Her slowly grow as though milk was filling Her like a celestial wine glass. His elemental influence was at its lowest point when She hid. He never really understood why that was the case. Even if you couldn't see Her lighting the night sky, She was never gone.

"Why Ba Sing Se?" Azula asked behind him, breaking him from his meditative thoughts and bringing him back to the worrisome thoughts relating to his current predicament: his potential pursuers and his present partner.

"I have an influential friend there that could help us disappear."

"A friend? You don't seem to have very good taste in friends," the once princess chastised before running into something. It was Qilaq. He had stopped at a T-junction at the end of the empty street and didn't seem to react when the Firebender ran face-first into his back. "What are you…?" "Did you know that Lim can't lie down without feeling excruciating pain from all the deep burns and pieces of metal lodged in his back?"

"How could I?" Azula was feeling more outraged than aghast at the moment and her tone showed it. "I don't care what his excuse is. You do not behave like that. You're actually defending that racist cretin?"

"Oh, don't get me wrong. He's as racist as they come and that is an abhorred way to be, but, knowing that the Fire Nation, your people, your subjects did that to him and worse to some of his friends and family, can't you at least understand why he is the way he is?"

"They aren't my subjects anymore," Azula said, turning away. "It's still no excuse. We're not at war anymore."

Qilaq chuckled. "Decades of fighting can do that to people. Wars like that don't just stop. Some scars won't heal. Scratch that. Scars _don't_ heal." The two of them had it out in a staring match for a couple seconds before Azula scoffed and turned from the man who wasn't backing down.

"These robes stink," the Firebender said of her Water Tribe attire in an effort to change the subject.

Qilaq outright laughed. "Well, wear 'em long enough and they stink like you."

"I do _not_ stink."

"Fine, they'll _smell _like you. How's that?"

Azula furrowed her brow felt the infinitesimal weight of a shadow on her back. She hopped aside just in time to avoid getting kicked only to get kicked in the gut by the same foot. She staggered back a bit and prepared to throw a fire-fist at the attacker, but she was locked up in the grip of another shadow, right behind her.

Qilaq was already in motion, snatching up the foot that kicked at Azula before it could be lowered. He yanked the assailant to the ground and dragged them around into the wall behind him. It was a warrior dressed in a green kimono covered in leather armor. He noted that the persons face was stark white and very feminine. Before he could examine further another warrior in the same uniform kicked his leg out from under him. He used the momentum from the fall to roll away and recover himself low to the ground.

"Stop Azula, please," wailed the warrior restraining the Firebender in a shrill, girly voice. Azula recognized it, but that didn't stop her from throwing her head back into her assailants face. When she was free she turned and confirmed who it was.

"Ty Lee?" said Azula with shock on her face. It was hard to see her face through the white make up and the dark veil of the night, but Azula knew it was her friend from long ago.

Ty Lee offered a week smile as her lip started to bleed. "Azula, listen, you have to come with us. You have to give yourself up," she pleaded.

The shock of seeing her friend after so many years and in that getup was bad enough, but when coupled with being attacked by her, it was almost too much for the former Fire Nation princess to process.

Qilaq was all action, though. He wasn't one to let his attackers rest. After a brief moment coiled on the ground he leapt at the other two warriors who unfolded two golden fans in each hand. The edges of the metal blades glimmered and gave the waterless Waterbender pause. Just for a moment though, then he charged the armed woman stopping short as an arrow zipped past his nose. He looked to his left and saw a familiar face. Two, in fact.

"Oh, so it's you two. Thawed well, I see. Where's your other friend?"

"Dead, just like you're gonna be," screeched Fu Li firing another bolt at Qilaq, who twisted and dodged it expertly, before being jabbed in the thigh by one of the green clad warrior women. All the feeling in his right leg was gone and he toppled to the ground. The other warrior held a fan to Qilaq's throat, but he immediately batted it away and kicked out her leg from under her. She staggered and he rolled up to a low cat stance, putting all his weight on his left leg.

Fu Li threaded another three arrows at once, but Da Tan stopped him. "Don't waste the effort," he said with his hand on the mad archers shoulder. "Let them do the job."

Azula had recovered from the shock of seeing her friend and slashed a wild whip of fire at the two warriors behind her. They ducked and avoided the flames and went back to concentrating on Qilaq, while Ty Lee slid under Azula and knocked the Firebender to the ground. She then leapt on her old friend and held her down.

"Take him out," Ty Lee said to her two cohorts.

"Look we don't have any trouble with you," one of the Kiyoshi Warriors said to the poised Qilaq. "You can just limp away from this and we'll let you go."

"We'll see who else is limping in a second, here," fired back the now visibly enraged Qilaq.

"Take him out!" Ty Lee yelled again, pressing against the struggling Azula. The Firebender was almost foaming at the mouth, but she couldn't get free of her friends hold.

Qilaq didn't wait. He attacked them, awkwardly because of his numb leg, and was easily blocked. The warrior who had made the offer closed her fans, jabbed at his torso three more times, and the valiant Waterbender fell to the ground in a heap. Fu Li cackled off to the side. The third warrior turned her attention on the former member of the Yu Yan Archers with disgust on her painted face. He noticed he seemed to illicit that response from people.

"We're just here for her," said the warrior to her victim on the ground as she turned to Ty Lee, who was having difficulty holding Azula.

"Should we kill him?" Fu Li asked his colossal colleague. "Let's kill him."

"In a second. Wait 'till they have the Harlot under control. Anyway, we don't want to make a scene in front of bystanders," he said, gesturing to the people who cautiously observed from their windows.

"Azula," pleaded Ty Lee, "You have to stop. You can't run. You have to go back to the Fire Nation and take your punishment. Please, just accept it." Azula stopped writhing and relaxed, as did the young woman on top of her. This proved to be a mistake. Azula kicked the Kiyoshi warrior off of her back and stood back up.

"I don't want to have to paralyze you Azula, but if I have to…"

"How can you betray me like this? Again?" screamed the young woman, choking on a sob.

"You're the one who betrayed her country," Ty Lee responded with an authority that Azula had never heard from her before.

"I was the rightful heir to the throne. My brother seized that from me. He robbed me of my right to rule!"

"It doesn't matter, Azula. You have to go back to prison."

"You don't know what it's like," hissed the Firebender.

"What, prison or betrayal?" Ty Lee snapped back. "I've experienced both because of you, my friend. My once best friend."

Azula couldn't speak anymore. Her throat closed up staring into Ty Lee's ghost white face. She couldn't beat one of them, let alone all three and the two mercenaries down the street. It dawned on her that she was not back in form. Years in prison had made her sloppy and weak.

A tear went down her cheek as rain began to fall. Big drops fell one by one, splashing apart on the rooftops, in the empty pots and on the earthen street. Soon, it was pouring.

Azula clenched her fist. "I will not give in," she said, almost unsure of herself. Ty Lee and the other two Kiyoshi Warriors took fighting stances before they noticed the raindrops coalescing into tentacles of water around them. Several of the tentacles wrapped around Ty Lee, pulled her into a wall and froze her completely in a block of ice.

Everyone turned and saw Qilaq standing in the middle of the street. "Summer showers," he said, with a smile on his face, and with a sweep of his arms he froze the other two warrior women solid.

Fu Li screamed and let three arrows fly at the Waterbender. Qilaq didn't mind two of the bolts as they glanced past him. He plucked the third from the air with an arm of water, encrusted it with ice and launched the bolt back at its shooter. Fu Li screamed, this time in pain, as he looked at the frozen arrow in his left thigh.

"Come on, you sons of whores!" Qilaq screamed in kind with a mad look on his face. "Come and get it!"

Da Tan snatched up his squealing friend and ran off around the corner without so much as a word.

"That's what I thought." said the Water Tribe warrior, rubbing his ribs.

He limped past the two frozen warriors, still dragging his numb leg and over to Azula who was staring at her friend as she suffocated in the ice. "Get her out," she commanded.

"No," Qilaq quickly answered.

"Do it!"

The Waterbender growled as he brought his left hand up, chest high, and pushed his palm down towards the ground. The top of the block of ice melted instantly and Ty Lee gasped and coughed, her head now free. Azula immediately grabbed her friend by the throat and started to choke the young woman. Her hands heated up and started to burn Ty Lee's supple flesh.

"You have no idea what it's like," she managed, her voice cracking the snarl in half. Images rose in the murky depths of Azula's consciousness. Chains. Guards. Things she couldn't suppress, couldn't forget, try as she might. But then she realized what she was doing and she let go.

Again, Ty Lee gasped and whimpered at the pain from her sizzling skin. A part of Azula wanted to tell Ty Lee, but her pride and her shame wouldn't let the words slip past her lips or even let the memories stay within the sight of her minds eye. Yet another, more visceral part of Azula wanted to kill the friend who had betrayed her, but that was just it: Ty Lee was once her friend. She couldn't kill her. Azula was too rational to let her emotions get the best of her, or at least that's what she told herself.

Qilaq wrapped his arm around Azula. "Take your hand off of me," she said low.

"Don't worry. I'm not trying to comfort you. I just need help walking. Still can't feel my leg."

"That's not my problem."

"Well, I'm making it your problem. I just saved your ass, again, so the least you could do is help me along. We're going to the same place anyway, right?"

Azula seemed to consider this, but there wasn't much to consider. For some perplexing reason, this Waterbending Tree Keeper had saved her, twice. He seemed the only person not out to get her. So, for lack of anyone else, she let him lean on her as she leaned on him.


	5. Intentions Arrive

Note to Reader: I'd actually been sitting on this since about Christmas. I didn't want to release it 'till I had time to do a once over and I still don't think I caught everything, but it's good enough for government work, so here's chapter five.

**Chapter 5: Intentions Arrive**

Later in the night, a hunched little man knocked at the door of the W.R.E. storage facility where Qilaq lived. He tried his best to straighten up, but his back wasn't having it.

"What!" shouted Lim, answering the door. He had a bloody cloth on his face and he was holding his nose.

The plainly uniformed official was startled by the aggressive greeting, but he continued on with his duty. "I'm here to see Tree Keeper Qilaq. I have reass…"

"Yeah, that bastard ain't here," Lim interrupted. "He ran off with that whore. Good riddance." It was hard to manage a seriously angry tone while holding his nose, but Lim pulled it off.

"Oh… ran off?"

"Didn't you hear me the first time? He's gone. AWOL. Off the reservation."

"Oh, dear. A deserter."

"That's what I just said."

* * *

The six-car train ground across the elevated stone track smoothly and relatively quietly. Azula and Qilaq hobbled on board and sat down, each in a back corner of the sixth car, just before the Earthbenders in the rear car began to push the train along the monolithic stone track.

For the first leg of the trip, the two travelers managed to get a little sleep. They tried to stay half awake, constantly conscious of the few strangers around them, but their vigil only lasted for the first half of the night. After a couple hours, they were totally out.

They arrived at the first stop a town over and everyone aboard filed off, presumably going to work for the day. It was an only slightly bigger town with a rather large market and a theater, though Qilaq had never been. He preferred a day of planting to a day of shopping and watching stuff. The sun peeked over the horizon as the train departed. Both of them woke up in the car by themselves. The first hours of daylight were uneventful.

Qilaq loved riding the train and was grinning every other second, staring out at the sights he so rarely got to see, while Azula sat silently. She had a serious, resolute gloom chiseled on her face. As he was proud to point out, Qilaq was not an idiot. He could tell something was eating at his traveling companion, but how to approach the subject without getting his head kicked off was a different matter. In all likelihood, there probably wasn't a way to avoid a head stomping, not with her.

"So… you want to play 'Find the Five-Needle Pine?'" he hazarded.

"No," said Azula curtly.

"Well, if you're not going to tell me anything about yourself, we might as well do something. It's a long trip, going in from the outskirts."

"We can do something. We can sit here silently."

"That is doing nothing."

"One is never doing 'nothing.' Why don't you… meditate?"

"Oh boy, meditate. Always loved doing that," said Qilaq his voice thick like sarcastic peanut-squash butter. Azula tried to follow her own advice for a second, but then a question flashed into her head that had been nagging at her since the fight the night before.

"How did you recover from those jabs so quickly?"

"They weren't very strong punches. The one made my leg numb for a while, but it's better now," he said rubbing his right thigh.

"Ty Lee specializes in Dim Mak: Qi blocking techniques. Apparently she tried to teach those other warriors the same moves. She must not have taught them very well."

"Qi blocking, hmm? Maybe I'm just too fast. After all, speed and fluid motion are a part of my discipline."

Azula scoffed. "I very much doubt that."

"Fine, they were inept. So you already had your answer. Why ask then?"

The svelte young woman began another bout of silence and the two sat there for nearly thirty minutes. It was about this time that Qilaq elected to break through the wordless air.

"This transit system is relatively new, out here. About a year after the end of the war, the Earth King returned from his world traveling and got really set on uniting his people, _all_ the people in the Earth Kingdom. These tracks run throughout the entire country and have caused a lot of growth in terms of town size and commerce. They've really… connected people." He looked over at the blank-faced foreigner from across the western sea. Her eyes were closed, but she was sitting up straight, so he figured she must have been awake. He sighed and went back to watching the throngs of newly planted trees and vast tracts of fertile farm land speed by. He still couldn't stop smiling.

Another question had been forming in Azula's mind, one that had been burdening her ever since she first met Qilaq. She never did get a straight (believable) answer. "Why are you helping me?" she asked, opening her eyes.

Qilaq seemed to consider this for a second. "Because… who wouldn't save a princess in peril? Isn't that what people just do?"

"Real people don't 'just do' anything. They have reasons, motives." In saying that last word, she shot a piercing look at him. He didn't return her gaze.

"I saw somebody in need and I helped them. Simple as that," he said without looking at Azula. It never seemed like he was lying to her, but she still felt as though she wasn't getting the whole truth. "You know what?" Qilaq began, diverting the conversation, "You need a new name. 'Azula, the Ph… ormer Princess of the Fire Nation,' can't be heard to be walking around town."

"I very much doubt that anybody would see me and think 'Princess,'" she said, holding her arms out and looking down at her deep-blue Northern Water Tribe robes.

"Well, all the same, we can't be throwing your name around and, since you're dressed for the part, I think you'd pass as my sister."

"Do you seriously believe that any sane person would buy that?" Azula pointed to her fair skin and golden eyes. Qilaq looked down at his brown hand.

"Hmm… you're my half-sister. There we go," said the Northerner brightly. Azula sighed and rested her chin in her palm. "Now for a name. Something good. Something appropriate." He stared at his exasperated companion with a look of contemplation. "How about Chulyin? It means raven. Nah, that's no good. How about Nasamiituuq? It's this hearty little Tundra flower that…"

"I can't even say that… Nasahmituk?" she attempted.

"Close. To be fair, I don't think I could even spell it."

"Useless, ignorant…" mumbled Azula.

Qilaq let his smile drop and narrowed his eyes at her. "How about Arrluk?"

"Is that even a woman's name?"

"It means killer whale-wolf." Azula narrowed her eyes at him and they stared at each other for an extended couple of seconds. Qilaq couldn't maintain his grimace and it melted into a smile. "How about Anana," he continued.

"And what does _that_ mean?" asked the Firebender leaning back in her seat.

"I've got it," he almost exclaimed. "The perfect fake name for you: Shila. It means flame." Azula didn't speak, but she cracked a smile. It was almost redundant to call her "flame."

"So, Shila, my half-sister," he began, "You want to play 'Find the Five-Needle Pine,' now?"

"If I play, will you stop pestering me?"

"Of course."

"How do I play?"

"Well, it's really easy. Just call out all the five-needle pines you see. First one to ten wins."

"I don't even know what a five-needle pine looks like."

"They're easy to spot. We plant them among the native trees to bump up diversity in the local biosphere. Their proper name is 'Agnia Pinus Parviflora,' or Fire Nation White Pine. You probably had one or two in your palace garden."

"Actually, I think there was one," said Azula with a little laugh, thinking about the softly arching bridge spanning the tranquil stream.

"Great. You know what to look for, so, let's play."

* * *

The Fire Lord sat back from his desk and rubbed his tired eyes. Again, he'd managed to stay up all night pouring over proposals and reports. Everything, from agricultural figures to census forms to zoning contracts seemed to be appearing on his desk as of late.

Bai Tan had told him that it was his responsibility as monarch to at least glance at each piece of paperwork and give his seal of approval. Zuko wondered if he could just have his advisors do it for him, but then what purpose would the Fire Lord serve if all his work was done by other people.

He upped the light level in his chamber with a soft flick of his wrist and picked up another wordy piece of paper work. Apparently the prisons were reaching capacity. It still didn't seem to be stopping the Loyalists from perpetrating increasingly heinous acts of public violence.

The Fire Lord covered his right eye to test his vision in the left one. His scarred eye was getting harder to see out of by the month. The royal physician did all he could, but feared that Zuko would lose vision in that eye by the end of the year. Just another reason to hate father, Zuko thought.

"Fire Lord, sir, permission to… ask if the Fire Lord is alright, Fire Lord, sir!" the armor in the corner stuttered loudly. Zuko was a little surprised to hear his new personal body guard speak. Normally, you couldn't tell the live guards from the empty suits of armor that decorated the halls. He supposed that was part of the palace security system.

"You don't need permission for that, solider. I'm fine." The man straightened up. His new armor was chafing him terribly, but he endured it like a good solider. "So," Zuko said, continuing his work, "You must be pretty good. Master Bai Tan hand picked you to be my personal full time guard."

"Fire Lord, sir! I graduated from the Fire Nation Academy with high marks and was… put… assigned to the National Guard, following graduation, Fire Lord, sir!"

"You don't have to shout everything and you don't have to start and stop all your sentences with 'Fire Lord, sir,'" said Zuko making a slight imitation of the young mans voice. "You have an accent. You're from the…?"

"Sir, from the Earth Kingdom, sir."

"And you're a Firebender?"

"Sir, yes, sir!" yelled the solider. Zuko gestured for him to quiet down. "Sorry, sir."

"Well, I don't think I'll really need you to protect me. I don't know if you've heard, but I'm a pretty capable Firebender myself," said the Fire Lord with a smile.

The young Royal Guard was a little perplexed by the conversational attitude that his Fire Lord was taking with him. Agni forbid, he took a similar tone, but he felt obliged to offer his thoughts. "Sir, in the Fire Nation Academy, we we're taught to never go it alone. 'You always be covering someone's back and you'll always be covered.' That's what the master always said to us."

"Well, he wasn't very articulate, but I can see his point. So, you'll watch my back, huh?"

"Sir, yes, sir." the guard almost yelled.

"What's your name solider?"

"Naoki, sir. Here to serve and protect, my lord, sir."

The Fire Lord laughed. "Glad to hear it." He appreciated the happy diversion from the grim state of affairs that seemed to be gathering around him like so many fallen leaves.

* * *

The train stopped about half way to Ba Sing Se in a bustling little hub of commerce called Xidezhen. Four Earthbenders came out of the windowless back car and stretched before sauntering off to eat.

"Alright," Qilaq said with a yawn, "The conductor said that the layover will be about an hour, so…"

"So, I'll see you in an hour," Azula finished for him.

Qilaq's smiley mood diminished a bit at this. "Where are you going?"

"I don't know, but you aren't going to follow me." She made it sound like a fact and this did not help brighten the Waterbender's mood.

"Don't you think it might be safer if we stick together?"

"I'm not all that concerned with safety at the moment." There wasn't any enmity in her voice but she did sound a little fed up. Qilaq was still reluctant to let her go off on her own, but she just walked away.

"Wait," he called after her. She turned and caught the silver piece thrown at her head. They said no more to each other and then she continued off.

"Well, it's unlikely word's got all the way out here. I suppose you'll be alright on your own for a bit," he said to himself, watching her mingle into the market crowd. "Can't get too far, anyway."

Azula was awash with emotion in her solitude, but the throngs of people about her helped to alleviate the stress. She couldn't understand why there were so many people in this country town.

There were Earthbending artisans sculpting ridiculously proportioned busts of passers by and selling them at equally ridiculous prices. Market stands were covered in semi-precious stones that looked almost genuine. Elaborately designed pottery came in every size and shape that could be conceived to contain something. At the far end of the street, several dancers dressed in the most obnoxiously vivid colors entertained a gathering ring of consumers and local families. A myriad of colors spotted the landscape and came together in a patchwork of unified diversity.

She couldn't even remember the last time she was surrounded by so much lively chaos that wasn't caused by her and an entourage of soldiers. She thought about home for a second, but she didn't miss it, terribly. There were a few pleasures she could do with, she thought, as she tried to run her hand through her tangled hair.

"Oh my, honey," a deep feminine voice cried out next to her. "You need a new 'do."

"Excuse me!" Azula remarked, turning to see a woman as big around as she was tall standing in front of a doorway.

"Oh, I don't mean any disrespect, hon," apologized the round woman. "I just see so much untapped beauty sprouting from that head of yours. Come on in. I'll make it look right." The wide-thighed hairdresser squeezed through the doorway as she beckoned Azula into her shop.

Azula was almost outraged to hear such a direct insult, but then she realized that her hair hadn't been more than rinsed in the past two week. Not to mention, she hadn't had a royal hair combing since before her interrupted coronation. She ran her hand through her greasy tangled hair a second time and decided to go in.

"The name's Zan," said the woman as she sat the tangle-haired Azula down in front of a sink. Azula watched the woman start to actuate a water pump. "You're name, hon?" the hairdresser asked her silent customer.

For a second, a feeling of panic came over her, but then her thoughts calmed and she fell into familiar habits, remembering the name that Qilaq had dubbed her with. "Shila," Azula lied, simply.

"Ooo, Shila. That's quite the sultry name to live up to. Doesn't look like you've got any trouble with that, though." Zan laughed loud and high. 'Shila' felt obliged to laugh a little, too, but stopped when the large woman kicked the wall once and a rush of water poured from the wall faucet into the basin. She then leaned 'Shila' back into the water and began washing her hair.

"So, you a traveler?" asked the round woman.

"Yes, actually," responded Azula. "From the Northern Water Tribe."

"Oh, I could have guessed, what with those beautiful robes ya have on." Azula didn't respond to the flattery. She just sat back while the heavy-set hairdresser went about the task of untangling her raven locks.

After a pause, punctuated by little yips from Azula when her hair was pulled, Zan began again. "You know, if you're in town for a while, I know a cozy little place around the corner were you can board. You'd really be helping the family out, too. Tough times for people like them."

"'People like them?'" Azula asked, tentatively. She didn't really care who they were, but the position she was in made her feel obligated to converse.

"Yeah, from the Fire Nation. Came over a couple months ago. They bought up a pretty big place and have been trying to rent out the rooms. Not many people around here are really… fond of foreigners. But they're nice people and they rent cheap."

"I won't be in town for long."

"Oh, that's a shame. It's a lively place. Just as well, though." Zan took a step back and held her chin while she considered a good style for her subject. "Ooo, you know what? I think I can do a traditional southern style for you. It's almost a lost art, those styles. I'll take these strands here, in the front, and then let 'em slack on the sides and put them into a roll in the back."

Zan held Azula's hair out in an approximation of the style and Azula looked at her reflection in the reflective sheet of metal on the wall next to her. She was instantly reminded of the Water Tribe peasant that had defeated her and chained her during Sozin's Comet. "I will _not_ wear my hair like that," she growled low, like a ravening animal. It set the rotund woman's eyes wide.

"No, you won't," she said with a scared laugh. "Well, I'll make it up as I go then. How's that?" Azula recovered herself and nodded.

The rest of their time together was spent in silence. When Zan was done, she brushed off her customer and proclaimed "Beautiful." Azula looked at the work. It wasn't entirely even, but it was clean, neat, and free of tangles. Her hair fell down to her shoulders in soft waves.

After she stood up, Zan held out her sausage-fingered palm. Azula groped through her robes looking for the silver piece that Qilaq had thrown her.

"Is this enough," she asked.

"Plenty," said the hairdresser, with a twinkle in her eye. Azula felt she may have been getting gypped, but she had no other money and she didn't think to ask for change. Purchasing goods and services was a new experience for the former princess. She bowed and was escorted out by Zan, who squeezed out the door after her.

"Sorry I just plucked you off the street like that, but it's a hard world: gotta be aggressive if you want ta survive," and with those words of wisdom the woman struggled back in through her doorway.

After a few moments, considering the cliché in those words, the disguised Firebender started back toward the train. She waded through throngs of people and, as she neared the track, she heard the sound of grinding stone.

The train was leaving!

She rushed through the crowd, along with another man who seemed to be in the same predicament, but it was too late, for the both of them. The train was already passed the platform and off at a steady pace, towards the horizon. Azula stopped. The man next to her kept running at the train, calling in vain for it to wait. He threw his straw hat to the ground and cursed when he reached the end of the platform. When he walked off, the station was deserted, say for Azula, who felt an ache in the pit of her stomach forming like a hole.

She looked around. Qilaq wasn't there. Did he leave her? Maybe he thought that she was leaving him and so he left her. More likely, he thought it safer to be on his own, away from her danger drawing presence. What was she to him, anyway, other than a princess to be saved?

She was really alone, now.

It disgusted her a bit, but the thought of him having left her caused the ache in the pit of her stomach to worsen. She felt her throat close a little and then…

"Ahrrgah!" exclaimed a voice behind her. She turned and there was Qilaq, pulling at his nappy hair. "Dammit! Where did you go? I was looking for you in town. I told you to be back in an hour. Now we're going to have to wait three days for the next train."

The pit in Azula's stomach shrank away and she returned to the familiar feeling of being annoyed by her companion. "I was getting my hair done," she said with a self-righteous tone. "It must have taken longer than I thought."

"Yeah, obviously. Dammit. Now we have to… Damn it!"

"If it makes you feel any better, I think I may have found a place where we can stay."

"That makes me feel…" Qilaq took a deep breath, let it out and said quietly, "slightly better." He turned around. "Dammit woman," he mumbled.

"What was that?" questioned Azula.

"You're hair looks nice," said the quick Northern Waterbender. Azula blushed, mostly because of the annoyance. "Alright, let's go to this place." He gestured for her to lead the way and she did.


	6. The People of the New World

Note to Reader: So, school is upon me once more. As a result, the updates will be coming less frequently, but I intend to update at least once a week. Sunday will probably the regular day, but, if I get something done, I'll be sure to post it as soon as it gets a once over.

**Chapter 6: The People of the New World**

Azula brought Qilaq to the inn that her hairdresser had mentioned. It was less like an inn and more like a large, two story house, squeezed on both sides by similar buildings of stone. The two travelers walked into the foyer. Nobody seemed to be home, so Qilaq knocked on the door. A room away, there was a metallic clamor and staggered footsteps, then a woman peeked around the corner with wide, pale-yellow eyes.

"Sorry to disturb you," Qilaq said, "but we were told you have rooms available."

"Oh," she exhaled with what sounded like relief, "Yes. I'm sorry. I thought you were… someone else." She came around a corner with a black, iron frying pan in her right hand. It looked like it had been used very recently, evident by the still steaming fat sliding down it.

It was then that a man came to the top of the nearby staircase. "Who is it, Aimi?" he said with a gruff cough.

"Boarders," she called up. "It's a couple of… um, Water Tribe, right?" she asked, turning to Qilaq.

"Northern. You got it," he responded with a smile.

The spindly man came down the stairs slowly with a little boy clinging to his pant leg. "So, you're looking for a room, are ya?" he asked slowly, scrutinizing Azula and Qilaq. "You got money?" He strained every other word to avoid hacking.

"Yes, sir. If you'll have us, we'd love to stay for a couple nights. Just until the train to Ba Sing Se swings back around." Qilaq handed a gold piece to the man.

"Oh, yes, you can stay. My name is Nobu. This is my wife, Aimi," he said gesturing to the woman with the frying pan.

"Hello," she said tentatively, but with a smile.

"And this is our son, Lee," said the man, pointing down behind his leg. The little boy peeked around his dad's narrow thigh to get a look at the two new people.

"Pleased to meet you, all," said Qilaq with a chipper enthusiasm that made Azula a little sick. "My name is Qilaq and this is my half-sister, Shila."

"Yes, good to meet ya," said the man, punctuating his sentence with a cough. "Here, I'll show you up to your rooms," he said, starting up the stairs after the boy who scurried ahead.

"Dinner will be ready in…" Aimi looked at the pan she had hastily emptied to use as a weapon. "Um, a couple minutes. Looks like we're having soup tonight," she said, going back into the kitchen.

Nobu led Qilaq and Azula to a small room upstairs. It had a mattress, a chest of drawers and a window-hole overlooking the street.

"We'll call you down for meals," said the gangly man, opening the sliding stone door on the closet with effort. He pulled out a few linens and handed them to Qilaq. "You don't got anymore bags or things?"

"No," smiled Qilaq. "We travel light."

"Erm, I see that. Well, dinner soon. Come on Lee, let's let the Northerners alone." The father coaxed his son out of the hall and the two 'Northerners' were left alone. Azula walked over to the window and stood there with a scowl of contemplation.

"The bed's yours. I'll take the floor," Qilaq said.

"How generous of you," Azula said sarcastically without looking back.

"Mhm, it is 'generous' of me. From what I've heard, being siblings, we should be fighting tooth and nail over the bed."

"You don't have any brothers or sisters?" she asked reflexively.

"No, I was an only child. You have a brother. What's it like?"

"He was hardly any brother to me. Now he's just the Fire Lord, the man who locked me away and left me to rot."

"Not very brotherly of him, to be sure, but could you step away from the window when you talk about your, eherm, 'history.'"

Azula caught herself and stepped back from the window, hoping nobody on the street was listening. It was very unlikely, but still… "I think it's best we don't talk about ourselves where we can be heard."

"That's what I said, but speak for yourself. I can talk about my history all I want. I'm not hiding who I am. Not yet, anyway."

Azula just scowled again, this time at Qilaq, before she lay down on the mattress. It was just slightly softer than the rock it covered, but it was still that much better than sleeping on the hard, earthen floor. The Waterbender set out a mat and some blankets next to the mattress and tested out his sleeping space. He hit the floor with a dull thud that rattled his bones and pushed out a grunt of pain from his throat. The Firebender stifled a laugh.

The two of them lay silently, staring at the ceiling, for about a half an hour. Azula was trying to slow and arrange her thoughts. Her brother, her traitor friend, her nation, her father, her defeat, prison, years in prison, her escape, the death of her friends, revenge, Qilaq…

Qilaq's mind was similarly burdened. He had deserted his post after helping a fugitive escape capture and was now a fugitive himself. That didn't bother him though. The benefits of getting to Ba Sing Se outweighed the troubles of leaving his military bondage, though he did miss the forest. The trees would be fine without him to tend to them, but still, he missed them.

The sound of footsteps closed in on their door. "Hey, you two. Dinner," Nobu coughed. They got up and followed their host downstairs to the dining room. Aimi was jetting between two pots of boiling liquid, presumably edible.

"Soup's on," she said bringing the pots over to the center of the table. Everyone sat around, still for a moment, before the cook joined them. "Well, dig in… er, drink up."

"Aimi, we need a ladle or something to serve with," her husband said.

"Oh," she gasped. She started to get up again, but Qilaq motioned for her to stop.

"Don't worry about it," he said. "Allow me." The Waterbender sat up in his chair and, with wave of his hands, lifted the soup from the two pots.

"Wow, magic! Papa, look, it's magic," said the boy in awe.

"Soup magic, yes," said Qilaq. The globules wobbled in midair, their meat and vegetable contents kept in by the surface tension of the water. The Soupbender asked his awestruck hosts and not-so-impressed companion to point to the flavor they desired. After willing a portion to each person, the remaining soup floated back into the pots without a single drop spilt.

"That's a very convenient talent for serving," said Aimi, letting her words trail off.

"It… is," agreed Qilaq.

"Now you should do magic," said Lee eagerly pointing his tiny finger at Azula. He caught the young woman quite off guard.

"Um, I'm not a Waterbender," quavered Azula. She almost felt ashamed of her fictitious persona's inadequacy, but she reminded herself that she was a more than capable Firebender. At least, she used to be.

"That's very interesting," said Aimi. "I always thought that all Water Tribe people could Waterbend."

"No, not every one of us," responded Qilaq with a smile. "We've got regular people, too."

"Your eyes are gold, just like mine and momma and papas," chirped the little boy, pointing at Azula's face yet again. "Why aren't your eyes like his?" he said pointing at Qilaq's humored face.

"Lee, that's rude," scolded his mother.

"Oh, no. It's fine," Qilaq assured the concerned woman. "We get it all the time. You see, Lee, her momma and papa were from the Fire Nation, but my momma and papa were from the Northern Water Tribe."

Lee's pupils appeared to be magnetically drawn to one another for a second as the boy attempted to process the information. After a quick second he asked, "If you have different mommas and papa's, then how are you brother and sister?"

Qilaq laughed and dropped his spoonful of soup back into the bowl, as did Lee's father. "Can we all please just have a nice quite dinner, now," Nobu said, raising his voice. He looked from his son to his wife and said, "Let's stop bothering the Northerners and let them eat."

The rest of the evening was quiet, as per Nobu's forceful request. The man in question occasionally broke the silence with a phlegmmy cough, but other than that, and the occasional slurp, nothing else transpired and, after setting their empty bowls delicately in the sink, the two travelers retired to their room.

The sun had just started it's descent behind the horizon and the city outside took on a shimmering golden hue. As usual, the scenery was the least of Azula's concerns, but she took it in as she stared silently out the window. When the dusk shine waned to a twilight pall, Qilaq stood up from his lean on the wall, drawing his roommates' attention. She watched him stretch and take off his robe without any apparent concern for her presence.

Azula had envisioned the Waterbending warrior as a fair bit more muscular than the wiry man before her. He also lacked any significant scars. She didn't want to prompt a lengthy exposition as to his personal history, so she opted not to ask him about it. Conjecture was good enough for her, at the moment. She wanted to say something, though.

"Are you always so showy with your bending?" Azula remarked, referring to the Soupbending display at dinner.

"Go to sleep," he sighed, laying down on his side and pulling a blanket over his exposed, bronze skin. Azula was vexed by his short tone, but she was tired and did have something of a bed to sleep on for the first time in years. She quickly disrobed, watching to make sure that her companion wasn't sneaking a peek, and then slipped under the covers and off into a fitful sleep.

* * *

Half a world away, the Fire Lord has elected to take a stroll through the harbor city just outside the royal plaza. In the past, Fire Nation Royalty would be borne through the streets atop veiled palanquins with all the masses prostrate in reverence. Zuko was the first monarch of the Fire Nation to allow his people to not only stand in his presence, but go about their daily lives without interruption. Many people still bowed and parted from his presence, but it was a far cry from the reactions of bygone decades, as Zuko wished it to be.

While the Fire Lord bore Naoki as his distant, but still vigilant, escort, he escorted his wife, Fire Lady Mai, through the clamor of the afternoon market rush. Naoki was extremely on edge, knowing that any number of unspeakable atrocities could befall his charge and lord at any second. A runaway cart could flatten him. A stand could collapse and crush him. He could ingest tainted meat. Deadly vulture-bees could swarm from the sky. A meteor strike. A runaway platypus-bear could maul him. More likely, an assassin could shoot a poison dart or simply walk up and shank the Fire Lord. All these scenarios played out over the fore of the young guards mind in graphic detail.

He was all nerves when he approached his lord from behind and startled him, which startle Naoki. Mai just turned with a blank expression on her face.

"Sir, do… are you absolutely committed to taking this… walk through the market?" stuttered Naoki through his faceplate, averting his gaze out of habit.

"Relax," said Zuko, putting his hand on the twitchy Firebender. "We're still right next to the palace."

"Miles from it," interjected Mai.

"Anyway," the Fire Lord continued, "Master Bai Tan, your boss, signed off on this. He thinks it's safe, I think it's safe."

"So, you're thinking alike now?" said Mai with a morose sarcasm. She was one of the few people who didn't trust Zuko's new head advisor. There was something about him, though she couldn't quite place it, which made it all the more difficult to get him expelled or, at the very least, investigated.

"Mai, he's a wise man. I trust his judgment."

"I don't."

"You've made that very clear. Look, if we can't trust our elders, who can we trust."

"We can trust ourselves and each other," she said, locking eyes with her husband.

He started before he responded. "Why do you think I made him head advisor. He's wise and very well traveled, not to mention he's a former Earth Kingdom Advisor. He knows what he's doing."

"An Earth Kingdom advisor advising the Fire Lord," said Mai, her words rank with sardonic humor.

"It's important to integrate outside influences into our culture and our thinking. It's the key to restoring our world."

"Yeah, yeah, I've heard your speech, dear. So," she started, giving Zuko the eye again, "are those your words or Bai Tan's?"

Zuko wasn't too surprised by her question. "I trust him and I believe in what we're doing to move our nation forward."

"Well, I may not trust him, but I do believe in you Zuko. If you think it's right, I'll believe it." Zuko smiled and kissed his beloved wife on the cheek.

"Finest cutlery all the way from Ba Sing Se!" hollered a nearby merchant. Naoki was almost on top of the man as he finished his pitch. The Firebender had his blazing fist cocked and aimed at the man's frightened face.

"Naoki, calm down," Zuko prompted his edgy bodyguard. Naoki instantly obeyed and snapped to a rigid attention.

Mai walked over the stand and scrutinized the stainless-steel knives. This snapped the merchant from his sweaty terror. "Ah, you have a good eye, m'lady. This is all handcrafted by the new Yamato-Nuan Smithy, just recently opened up in Ba Sing Se. Quality Metalbending craftsmanship." Mai said nothing as she admired the fine edges on the cutlery.

An explosion tore open the corner building at the end of the street. A cloud of mingled jet smoke and amber flame billowed into the sky and the streets were instantly filled by a deafening cacophony of panicked screams. Amid the fleeing market goers, Zuko caught one man look back at the towering blaze and smile.

The Fire Lord struggled through the flow of people rushing to escape the horrific inferno. Mai stood in shock, gripping a steak knife with white knuckles. Naoki was right on his lord's coattails trying desperately to usher him to safety.

As Zuko pushed past a screeching young woman with a basket in hand, he felt a sheet of heat fold over his face and envelope his body. He turned to the fire, to the stench of smoke, burning wood and sizzling flesh, and, from within, the sound of screams.

Naoki finally reached his lord and attempted to wrench him from away from the chaos, but Zuko was petrified in place. "My lord, we've got to get out of here!" shouted the young man. "We must get you to safety!" He could barely hear himself above the cacophonous din.

Zuko turned to his bodyguard and said, pointing, "That man. Naoki, get him." Naoki hesitated, unsure what to do: obey his lord or get him to safety. "Arrest that man, solider!" the Fire Lord screamed at his servant, who promptly obeyed and rushed toward the man in the middle of the street.

"You!" Naoki yelled. "In the name of the Fire Lord, you're under arrest!" The man seemed to shake from his mad glee and started to run away, but Naoki caught him at the mouth of an ally and pushed him face first into a wall.

Stepping into the middle of the street, Zuko took a deep breath and slid into a firm arrow stance. With his left middle and forefinger pointed at the heart of the burning building, he began drawing in energy. From the tips of his fingers through breadth of his chest he drew in the heat and then, striking out his right middle and forefinger, he began to siphon the heat from the building. The air in front of the Firebending master wavered as it was sucked into him before coming out and rising harmlessly into the sky above.

When Naoki turned to see what was going on, the man he had pressed against the ally wall and, with his free hand, grabbed the young solider by the balls. Naoki let out a squeal and the man threw his head back into his captor's helmet. The impact pushed Naoki back and concussed the man a bit. After a stunned moment, the man launched his leg up and behind him. Flames trailed the man's foot as the kick exploded on Naoki's face, knocking his helmet clean off.

The young bodyguard fell to the ground and saw his opponent draw back his palm. The pinpoint of energy gleamed like the twinkle in the mad man's eyes. "Do you see?" gibbered the man. "Your immolation is at my, our, hand." The tiny light sparked into a quivering fireball and, as he drew back his hand a steak knife stabbed through his inner elbow, slicing through the cartilage of the joint and staggering him back.

Naoki turned his head and saw Fire Lady Mai standing across the street. She had pushed through the screaming masses and thrown the knife into the mad man's arm with astounding precision.

"Well," she said to the prone young man. "Don't just lay there. Get him!" Naoki obeyed the command immediately, pulling the man to the ground and laying on the weakly struggling Firebender.

Seconds after the roaring fire was kindled, the Fire Lord shrank it away, leaving the building charred and rent, but stable and cool. The screams, too, shrank away, to mere moans of agony. People were still running, though some had stopped in awe of their Fire Lord's heroic deed. Others rushed into the still smoking building to help the survivors, while still others broke down and began to wretch and sob.

The Fire Lord turned to his wife and was relived to see her safe. Then he turned to the perpetrator of this wicked act, whom Naoki had subdued. "Get off him," he commanded his guard firmly. Naoki hesitated for a moment, but was quickly pulled from his captive by his lord.

"Who put you up to this, you degenerate," seethed the furious Zuko, pushing the man against the ally wall.

The man howled out with high, gravely laughter and showed his yellow-brown teeth. "Torture me with all the pains you can imagine," he breathed. "I will not talk."

Zuko grabbed the hilt protruding from the man's elbow. "It won't take that much imagination to get you to talk," he fumed and gave the knife a quick twist. The man let out a moan of pain that slowly fell into sync with the moaning from within the smoking building. Zuko pressed the man against the wall harder.

The moan phased into a laugh. "I cannot talk, because I know nothing," said the man, his sour breath spraying the Fire Lords face. "None of us do. We, the Loyal, the true people of the Fire Nation, are naught but the disparate slivers, echoes, of an ideal. Only when all is done, will you know all that we are. Or not, because you'll be dead." Again, the man laughed, the sound like a yelping wild dog with a throat full of small stones.

Before Zuko could press any farther, guards and soldiers appeared all around and grabbed up the Fire Lord and Lady, taking them back to the safety of the palace.


	7. A Day In

**Chapter 7: A Day In**

There was a flicker of red, like sunlight coming down through a sanguine river. It flashed white, crimson, blood-sky pink, and between those hues for unmeasured time. An instant passed and the unyielding feeling of metal against bone, against the bone where soft flesh once cushioned from the hard metal, was felt. Longer than that, pain was the vacant feeling in the stomach that stretched out beyond the walls of flesh and air and stone and metal to the vaster realms of the touch of warm glances given freely and without begrudging the sorry sight of one. It was a dry feeling where fever heat was ever present and warmth was nowhere but within the cold and choked beating heart. Fine grains of light from the suns white shadow were but a memory and the darkness that surrounded them prevailed. The sound of gibbering laughter was in the air and the caustic taste of words with none to hear them… a door opens and dim light, bright in the darkness, darkens with shadows that encroach. She feels hands. Smells of musky copper and then sharp and then dull pain from…

Azula heard what sounded like a knuckle cracking in her skull when she snapped her eyes open. The world changed from an incoherent haze to a cyan room. The glow from the sun, yet to rise, came through the window and with it the sound of merchants wheeling out their carts and opening up their voices to start their morning sales.

She lay listening to the slight and jarring sounds while she thought. Three more days and they'd be on their way to Ba Sing Se. She was all too aware of her martial deficiency from years in chains. There was no way she could fight or even protect herself when conflict arose. All she could do now was depend on Qilaq to protect her and that fact disgusted her almost as much as her rusty Firebending.

After the light streaming in rose a couple hues to morning shine, Azula stiffened her muscles and her resolve. She had the time. Three days of straight training wouldn't be enough to regain her former strength, but would at least be enough to get her basics back up to snuff. Then she wouldn't be such a helpless damsel. Then she would be strong and, eventually, able to avenge her friends and get those slimy mercenaries.

She looked over at Qilaq, who was in the same position as when he went to sleep last night. Azula noted how soundly and silently he slept as she kicked her covers off and stood up. Stepping away from the window, she brought her clothes to a corner and faced the wall, pulling up her faded cerulean pants.

"Whoo, put it on," a voice catcalled lazily. The half naked Firebender turned quickly to see Qilaq in his bed with his hands behind his head and an artful smile painted on his face.

Azula blushed pink with embarrassment and then flushed red with rage. "Get out!" she screamed, tossing her robe at his head. She was tempted to set it on fire before she threw it, but then she wouldn't have anything to wear.

Qilaq giggled as he pulled her robe from his face, gathered up his robe and stepped out of the room. As he slipped on his clothes, he padded down the stairs and into a room where he could hear a child playing.

He peeked into the study. A sparsely-filled bookcase covered the opposite wall with a solid stone desk protruding from just beneath the window sill. Two poorly finished wooden chairs sat opposite the window and various inked papers and ruddy knickknacks littered the space.

Lee sat on the floor, orchestrating an epic battle between a carved, wooden dragon and a Firebender figurine, while his father sat in a chair with his eyes closed, absorbing the sun's morning rays. The boy waved at the Northerner standing in the doorway before returning to the battle at hand.

Qilaq stepped carefully around the battlefield and sat in the chair next to Nobu. The still man didn't even acknowledge the Northerner's presence.

"Thank you, again, for opening up your home to me and my sister," Qilaq said to his scruffy-faced host.

Nobu opened his eyes, but didn't look at Qilaq. "You're paying good money. You deserve what you're paying for," he said, clearing the phlegm from his throat. They sat in the sound of carts beyond the wall, rolling down the smooth dirt road, and the voices and sound effects that Lee dubbed onto his epic fantasy.

Qilaq redirected his attention to the boy. "So, Lee. Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

The boy broke from his fantasia and held his little Fire Nation solider up to Qilaq, saying, "My big brother's in the Fire Nation. That's where we came from. He doesn't do magic like you, though. He just does Firebending."

"Oh, and that's not magic?

"No. That's just Firebending. Lots of people can do that."

"And is your brother a solider?" asked Qilaq, pointing to the figurine in Lee's grip.

"Yeah. He's got a scar and everything," said the boy, pointing out the tiny detail of an X-shaped scar painted on the little soldier's chin. "He got it from another Firebender. Papa won't tell me who, though."

"Lee," Nobu said firmly. The boy flinched and looked into his papa's eyes. "Go play outside." Lee obeyed, picking up his dragon and careening out the front door. After the boy had gone, Nobu began a vigorous coughing fit. Qilaq moved to help the man, but Nobu put his hand out to stop the Northerner from touching him. The fit soon ceased and the gangly man leaned back calmly, wiping his stubble-wreathed mouth.

"You going to be alright?" asked Qilaq concernedly.

"Ahhhck," Nobu started, "they said the Earth Kingdom air would do me good. Can't say it's hurt, but I still can't stop hacking my lungs out. You're well protected in those tanks, but the enclosed space and the boiler… well, it all adds up to this," and he coughed, as if to illustrate his point.

"So, you were a boiler stoker in a Fire Nation crawler."

"Right ya are. Yeah, it was a tough job, like being folded up in a metal bread box with a working oven sitting next to you and it was your job to see that the oven kept burnin'. But… I did my duty and earned my peace. Never even had to kill anyone. Not personally, anyway."

He paused for a moment. "You were a soldier in the alliance, weren't you?"

"How could you tell," queried Qilaq, smiling as if it lightened the mood in the well lit, white-stone room.

"You have a worn look about ya. The skin on your hands looks hard. All your movements are strong and fluid."

"You're very observant," said Qilaq flexing his calloused knuckles.

"Well, I learned to keep my eyes open on the front. Was usually protected, but, outside the crawler, had to watch out. Been attacked by Waterbenders before. You move kinda move like they do."

"Yep, I was a fighter in the war, but that's all in the past. The war's done with." Qilaq tried to sound as optimistic as possible, but Nobu got the sense that it was a wash.

"Yeah, right. People keep sayin' that." There was another long pause as the two men watched the world through the window pass by. When the sunlight had made a visible shift across the floor, Nobu spoke again. "So, do ya still feel it? The anger?" All the light air was sucked from the room and a quasi-serious aura emanated from the two men, sitting in the sunshine.

Qilaq's smile diminished, slightly. "Do you think I'd tell you if I did?" he responded.

"Probably not," Nobu tried to laugh, though it just turned into a suppressed wheeze. "Ya seem too polite for that, but I'll be the bigger man and just say that, it is rather… difficult being here. I know that everyone still hates us, hates the Fire Nation. They don't show it, most of the time, but it's there. The anger. I had it too, ya know. All of us that fought had it, needed it. We survived by it. Now that we don't need it… let's just say it's hard to fall out of old habits."

"You're speaking for yourself, of course. I've been around and seen loads of people, Fire, Water, Earth, all races, getting along great."

"That's what you see, but you can't see how they feel. Not unless you look real hard."

"Regardless, we're getting along fine, now, aren't we?"

Nobu sat back in his chair and let out a rough sigh. "I'd like to be alone, now." Qilaq took the graciously obvious hint and headed for his room.

As he started up the stairs, the front door opened and Aimi came in with a basket overflowing with foodstuffs. "Let me help you with that," Qilaq offered.

"Ah, you don't need to trouble yourself," she said, trying to keep a chili pepper from sliding off the top of the mound.

"It's no trouble. Here," he said taking the groceries from her and walking them into the kitchen.

"Thank you. I'm sorry about breakfast. We were out of food, so I needed to go shopping. You can see that, though, I suppose."

"Yes. Actually, I was wondering if I could trouble you for a bucket or a jar and some water."

"Oh, yes, of course." she said looking around. She grabbed up a terracotta pot with her skinny fingers and put it under a spout protruding from the kitchen wall. She started pumping the leaver and, after a few pumps, water spurted from the nozzle and into the vessel. "Here you are," she said, handing the jar to Qilaq with a half-smile. She was curious as to what it was for, but thought it rude to ask. It was probably some sacred Water Tribe ritual that she had no business delving into.

"Thank you," said the Waterbender.

"I'll have lunch ready in an hour or two," she called after him as he made his way back upstairs.

In the room, Azula had gone through various stretches to limber up her stiff, relatively unused joints. Her range of motion was severely reduced, but that didn't stop her from running through basic Firebending sets. Her soma was thoroughly ingrained with the general movements, but the reduced coordination and occasional missteps, caused by a foggy memory, irritated her severely.

Five moves into the set she would forget the next stance and hesitate. Again, she started from the beginning. Seven moves in, a stumble during a crossover. Again, she started from the beginning. Two moves in, an unsatisfactory transition. Again, she started from the beginning. Her frustration fluctuated between growl and roar. Perfectionism is taxing.

Again she started from the beginning, this time making it almost all the way through the first set, but forgetting that there was a low ceiling above her, knocking her head against it, falling to the ground in a heap and cursing the small space and gravitational forces in general. She figured, while she was down there, she might as well do some pushups. Anything to keep her from accidentally burning the building down in a fit of frustration-fueled rage.

Sixty would be her goal, for now. She figured she had sixty regular pushups in her. At thirty the sinews in her arms began to burn. Her legs started to give way and by the time she made it to forty-five, all her muscles folded and she fell flat on her face. After a moment of reveling in her personal disappointment, she rolled over on her back and caught her breath.

Qilaq entered the room silently or at least quiet enough so that Azula couldn't hear him over the sound of the blood pounding in her ears.

"Working out?" asked her acting half-brother.

"Get out," Azula firmly commanded. She was as sparsely dressed as when she had shouted him away, wearing just the cerulean pants he gave her and the breast wrap she had made from torn linens.

"Hey, paying for the room," he stated plainly as he sat down on his mat. "Just go back to what you were doing. I won't disturb you."

"You already have," she griped. He really did have the high ground and Azula accepted his fiscal argument. She was too tired and too busy to care, anyway. She just pointed her knees up and started doing crunches. After her stomach muscles refused to contract anymore she slid her legs out and laid flat on her back.

A mild crunching sound occurred intermittently. Azula tilted her head to the side and saw Qilaq with a ceramic pot in front of him. He charmed water out of it and into his hands, which he then squeezed together, crushing out tiny shards of ice. Eventually, he had a pot full of glistening ice fragments, each one no bigger than a grain of sand. Then, with his fingers together and pointed down, he proceeded to jab at the frozen grit.

"What are you doing?" Azula asked out of sheer bewilderment.

"Same as you," he responded with a quick glance at his roommate. "It's training. I'm maintaining the calluses on my hands and fingers. It also lets me focus on keeping the ice crystals from melting. It's actually a lot more complicated than it looks," he said, switching to his left hand.

"I'll take your word for it," said Azula with an air confusion. Qilaq just smiled a half-smile as he stabbed his fingers into the ice repeatedly. Azula pointed her knees again before her companion spoke again.

"You know," he began, "one of the best ways to train is with a partner."

Azula sat up. "I doubt _you_ could help _me _get better at Firebending."

Qilaq considered his location: A solid, earthen room with poor acoustic quality, an open window, but to a noisy street a story down, and nobody at the door. It was safe to talk here. "True, I probably couldn't teach you much about Firebending, but I could certainly show you a few tricks about Waterbending."

"Learning how to bend water will not help me get better at Firebending," she reiterated.

"Maybe not, but, I find, _teaching_ your form helps to improve it. I'll teach you a few Waterbending exercises and you can teach me some of your Firebending dances. You learn a lot more about the motions and their purposes when you have to convey them to another person. It may even make you a better Firebender than you were."

"I _very much_ doubt that," she said, recalling her heyday as a prodigious Firebending master.

"Just consider it," concluded the Waterbender, who was now driving his knuckles into the crystalline dust.

The young woman further decried the idea with a sour expression and was about to go back to doing crunches, when she saw the little boy of the house appear in the doorway. Qilaq turned to the boy while continuing to hit the ice.

"Papa says you're 'half,'" quoted Lee. Azula didn't know how to feel about the remark, but something inside her felt offended (the acting Water Tribe part, perhaps).

Qilaq just widened his smile. "What do you mean?" he asked with a laugh. "Oh, right. We're _half_-brother and sister. That's because her mom and my dad got married after they had us with another mom and dad. That's when we became brother and sister."

"_Half_-brother and sister," corrected Azula.

"Right. Half," finished the multitasking Waterbender.

"But you aren't half-people," said the boy, using his brutally innocent logic.

"Ha, you are right," Qilaq laughed again, "but it's just a name. It doesn't mean anything, really. She's my sister and that's that," he lied fluidly, then quickly changed the subject. "Hey, do you want to go for a run around town?"

"Um…" the boy hesitated.

"How about you, Shila?" Qilaq asked, turning to his 'half-sister.' "Want to go for a jog?"

"I'm busy," she responded curtly, going back to her crunches.

"Alright then, but, keep in mind, the offer still stands."

"My papa says that I shouldn't go very far from home," said the boy meekly as he rubbed his sleeve under his runny little nose.

"Don't worry, Lee. You're safe with me, but just so we don't get in trouble, let's go talk to your papa about it."

"Okay," and with that the two boys darted off.

After another exhausting hour of struggling through dances and strength training, the Firebender was exhausted. She flopped down on her bed and wiped the thick layer of sweat from her skin with one of Qilaq's sheets.

When she reached for her robe she felt something hard poke her finger. It was her Fire emblem brooch. Azula sat up and gazed into the cast-gold blaze. The play of light against the tarnished metal reminded her of her mother. The quick shine that flashed across her pale eyes was in the trinket.

The pendant made her feel feather lightness and crushing sadness at the same time.

It is all for them, she convinced herself. For those whom she cared about.

"Sorry," uttered a timid voice in the doorway. Everyone seemed to be sneaking up on Azula today. It was the woman of the house, Aimi. "I brought you some clean sheets and blankets," she wavered again, stepping into the room. Her downward glance caught sight of Azula's deep blue garment. "Would you like me to wash your robes? I'm doing some laundry later, anyway."

"Sure," she said. A strange thing happened in that moment. Her mind was already flooded with foggy pictures of her mother and something about the lighting, the woman's slender fingers, her sunken cheeks and thin face, her somber, golden eyes…

Aimi looked just how Azula imagined her mother would look like now. She looked just like Ursa. Just like mom.

But it wasn't her.

"Okay then," said the mousy woman on her way out. "Ah, and if you want to take a bath, in the mean time, the bathroom's downstairs. You can just wrap up in a towel and dodge past the men folk."

"Thank you."

"Oh, it's no trouble. I'll get these back to you quick as a wink. Well, maybe not that fast, but quick. And lunch will be ready soon, too… but I'll do this first for you… unless you're hungry now."

"No. I mean… whatever's easier for you."

"Um, okay. I'll do the laundry, you take a bath and then I'll leave these by the door and get lunch started. How's that?"

"That's good."

"Good. I'll get started," and Aimi went down the hall.

Azula sat alone with the strong afternoon sun kissing her cheek and the tarnished brooch gripped tight in her fist. She was trying her best to avoid it, but she couldn't keep the strangle out of her throat or the tears from running down her face.

She missed her mom. She missed her friends. She missed the feeling of being home.

* * *

In a dark and windowless room, a man sits in silence. His joints ache with age and his mind roils with unappreciated wisdom. Suddenly a wall without a door opens up and a shadowy figure moves in with sunlight on its back.

"I have contracted Qilaq's services, as per your instructions, master," said the shadow with a raspy voice.

The wise man in the dark turned and looked into the silhouette's cold eyes. "And?" he asked simply, turning away again.

"He said he will bring her here by weeks end."

"Very good. Inform me when he arrives." With that, the shadow retreated into the light and the portal closed seamlessly. The wise man sat and rubbed his wrinkled hand across his balding skull. In the pitch black of the room, no one could have seen him smile the smile of a madman who was about to have his greatest wish fulfilled.


	8. Coping With It

Note to Reader: So I decided to list Zuko as one of the principle characters of this fic because he seems to have a much more prominent role than I had originally planned.

A big thanks to all you regulars out there and an extra special thanks to Passionworks for the regular reviews.

Enjoy.

**Chapter 8: Coping With It**

"Nothing! You're saying you learned 'nothing' from that man?" Zuko yelled as he paced through his uniformly ornate study. Bai Tan stood at the center of a labyrinthine yellow design woven into the red carpet that covered most of the floor space, while he absorbed his lord's fury.

"With respect, Fire Lord Zuko, please, calm yourself," he requested evenly. "What I said is that our… creative attempts at information extraction didn't glean anything useful from the subject. What we do know is that his name is Kazuo and that he was a Fire Sage before you began your reign, but all of that could have been found out by one of the older advisors identifying him. It would seem that he was telling the truth when he stated that he 'knows nothing.' Either that, or he is quite the impervious fellow," grinned Zuko's head advisor.

"Nothing. Nothing at all!" The Fire lord fenced his face behind his fingers and wiped down his well trained, black, pointed beard. "We can't have this Bai Tan. We can't have these madmen running loose and burning down restaurants and tea houses. Destruction. Murder. And for what?"

"Nothing, lord. They're anarchists." The advisor stood as a marble pillar against the wind. "That's what the lack of pattern and social connection between the assailants suggests. Kazou, himself, seemed to be operating with a thoroughly broken mind. As you say, my lord, they are madmen."

"It's almost like your implying that these Loyalist insurgents don't exist, that it's all just some deranged figment."

"Copycats, my lord. One man sees it happen and does it himself under the same pretense."

"Regardless of reason, or the lack there of, this has to stop."

"Yes. Though I don't have any direct evidence, I do have a theory, if your lordship would allow me."

"Of course."

"The man, Kazuo, said something that intrigued me. Actually, several things. I noticed a discrepancy in his diction, his speech. Most of it was very vulgar, but sometimes it would seem his words were not his own. This points to some degree of organization. Even if there isn't some mass grouping of insurgents taking place somewhere within the country, there is a common thread tugging at these men."

"This has been happening far too much for it to just be coincidence."

"My lord, I agree, but, to be honest, I've never dealt with this kind of anarchic terrorism before. There are no significant names and nothing connects them. It would seem that they truly are, as the madman so elegantly put it, 'disparate slivers.'"

"He said that to me, when I had him against the wall."

"Yes, about that, my lord." The Fire Lord's advisor cleared his throat. "I believe, for your own safety, you should refrain from appearing in public until this crisis is resolved. This is my personal opinion, though I'm sure the council would agree with me."

Zuko replayed the scene in his head. A deafening cacophony, the blaze, the screaming meat burning with pine, his wife, his heart, his people. It was his sacred duty to protect them all. Above all else, that was his purpose as Fire Lord.

"You're right, Bai Tan. I shouldn't be walking the streets. If I die, this country will just get worse. There's no legitimate heir to the throne, yet. Things would fall apart," Zuko had lowered his voice to a lament. As he stared up at the four fabric banners that hung above his desk, the promises he made in his first days as the new monarch welled up in his ears. Fire, Water, Earth and Air, all the elements mingling, to form a unified whole, like the Avatar: the singular embodiment of the oneness of the world. He wanted the world to reflect everything his good friend, Aang, is. That was his dream.

He scanned the emblazoned wall hangings, his gaze stopping at the cyclical swirl of the Air Nation insignia. It grieved him to recall that his lineage had been responsible for near total massacre of the Air Nomad's and their culture. Sure, their legacy lived on in the Avatar, but his great grandfather's vile act of genocide made Zuko feel responsible.

It was hard for him to look Aang in the eye when he had these thoughts and yet he greatly desired to have his friend by his side, right now. He wondered when Aang would return from his solitary travels.

"Excuse me, lord," Bai Tan ventured, breaking the long silence and Zuko from his ruminations. "Was there something else you wanted to speak with me about?"

"Yes." The Fire Lord looked past Bai Tan to Naoki, who stood by the deep red door. The armored guard stiffened under his lord's gaze. "I'd like it if we could finish this conversation in private."

Bai Tan glanced back at the motionless Naoki and then turned to Zuko. "Do not worry, my lord. Naoki is one of my hand-picked agents. Why do you think I assigned him to guard you? He is as trustworthy as I. So, please, what concerns you?"

Zuko was a little hesitant, "Have your men captured her yet?"

Bai Tan knew this question would be posed and he had a report ready. "I have received word that they joined with a small group of Kiyoshi Warriors to apprehend your sister."

"And," the Fire Lord spoke eagerly.

"I'm afraid, she escaped, again." Zuko growled as Bai Tan continued. "Sadly, it cost two of the three young women their lives."

"Something has to be done."

"Indeed, lord," agreed the advisor as his ran his fingers through his black hair and up his rigid topknot. "I assure you. You needn't worry yourself. The agents I have tracking them are, as I have mentioned many times before, the best men to get this job done."

"No, Bai Tan," his advisor tensed at his advisee's disapproval. "We need more. We need to catch her, now."

"If I may, my lord, why is the apprehension of your sister so important?" The former Earth Kingdom Advisor had been waiting for the moment when he could slide in this question. It would have been better revealed organically, but Bai Tan was an opportunist. If there was even a crack in the dam, he would pull the river through or at least enough to sate his thirst.

Zuko slumped into the high back chair in front of his desk and sighed. Paperwork continued to pile up. "I'm afraid, Bai Tan. Her escape. The intensification of these attacks. I can't help but feel that it's all connected. The Dai Lee helped her escape."

"That is what I reported to you, lord. Former Dai Lee agents were responsible for the jailbreak, according to our intelligence."

"What if they intended to use her as a rally point for their cause? What if they're mustering a force against the Fire Nation right now, in the Earth Kingdom?"

"I don't doubt that there are a few bitter souls who would like to see the Fire Nation fall," said Bai Tan with a perfect mask of concern. He tugged at the green trim of his jet-black, silken dress robes.

"I'm afraid for my people, and my wife, more than myself, but…" Zuko paused, recalling every battle he had fought against his sister. Whether by skill or underhanded cunning, she always managed to beat him. In the deep fibers of his primal emotion, he feared her.

"Lord, it is very unlikely that the incidents are connected. Her escape and the increase in attacks is just coincidence. Fear not. We'll have her in custody soon."

"Just to be sure," the Fire Lord said, leaning forward onto his desk and pulling out a blank piece of parchment, "I'm calling in a friend."

* * *

The next morning Azula rose, feeling fresh, almost purged of all her apprehensions. It wasn't until she reminded herself of the situation that stress tightened once again within her. She'd learned to live with it.

After a morning of stretching her sinews until they felt several inches longer, she ran through her sets step by step. Though her much sought after perfection still dangled unreachably in front of her, like a tomato-carrot on a string, she managed to make it through her basic sets with an amateur level of competency. She was still furious with her physical incompetence, but at least she wasn't scraping herself on the ceiling or falling to the floor, anymore.

Lunch time came and she joined the host family and Qilaq downstairs. Her traveling companion had been very absent since yesterday evening, say for sleeping in the room that night and attending meals. This morning he was gone before Azula even woke up, his bed left helter-skelter. She was more curious than concerned, though she still hadn't quite pinned down Qilaq, yet. Whatever truths he held, they either lied untouchable in the abysmal trenches of his soul or bubbled to the surface with little visible regard. What he said obviously wasn't as important as what he didn't say.

Aimi was a little chattier during the meal and the boy radiated that iridescent innocence, as usual. The man of the house, Nobu, remained stoic, say for the occasional cough. Azula admired that about him.

When lunch was done, Azula went back to the room and continued to drill her sets. Each mistake was shaved away with precision repetition. Soon, she felt comfortable enough to start producing small amounts of actual fire. It was a stone room with very little flammable material in it and she felt she had enough control at this point. She ran through the first part of the most basic Firebending set and kept the flames smaller than her fists and feet.

However, as she reached the climax of the dance, she scorched the wall in front of her and stopped abruptly. It wasn't a large mark, but she was reminded of why bending is best practiced in an open space and also of the fact that her alter ego is not a bender of any kind. She wiped as much of the burn off of the masonry as she could and sat at the foot of her squat bed.

About this time, Qilaq came through the door with little Lee in tow. "So, are you going to come and run with us today, Shila?" asked the Waterbender, getting straight to the point. Azula considered the proposal. "Come on, it'll be good exercise. Good for your heart, loosens you up."

"Fine," she exhaled, the double-meaning in his words not lost on her.

"Alright. Let's go, Lee," he said to the boy who was scrutinizing the mark on the wall. He turned and was on Qilaq's heels as the bounded down the stairs, Azula reluctantly but quickly following.

After a lap around the block the three of them jogged down the street towards the train station. They took a left at the salon where Azula had gotten her hairs cut and saw the rotund hairdresser sweeping loose clippings out into the street. She waved at Azula, who managed a diffident wave back before disappearing behind the corner.

After about a mile total of running the boy was tuckered and stopped, flopping flat on his back in the middle of the road. Qilaq stopped and went over to the boy with his hands on his hips, playfully kicking at Lee's feet. Lee kicked back from his lax position in the compounded, tan dirt. Azula caught up to the boys and caught her breath.

"Hungry?" Qilaq asked his two running mates. "Say, Lee, that's that stand you were telling me about that sells the hot stuff, right. Why don't you take this and go get something good for us to snack on." He dropped a few coins on Lee's stomach, causing him to flinch with a laugh.

"What should I get?" asked Lee with a smile.

Qilaq returned the smile and responded. "Whatever you think is awesome?"

The two older folks watched the boy dart off toward the confection stand with vigor from some deep well of energy that every child seemed able to call up when it benefited them.

Azula was warming to the precocious little scamp. She managed a faint smile and looked at her traveling companion. "You seem to be good with kids," she said.

"'Seem?'" he turned to her. "I am good with kids." He turned in Lee's direction again. "Eh, kids are easy: simple, logical, still warm hearted. It's only when they grow up that they become… difficult and cold." Qilaq adopted a slightly somber tone as he recalled his conversation with Nobu the other day.

"How sentimental of you," Azula chided crossing her arms.

"Ooo, ow. The Truth hurts," said the Waterbender, faking at affront, but really pleased that she was actually loosening up.

Lee came running back with a little bag full of shriveled red peppers. "These are awesome. Try some, Qilaq." The Northerner picked one of the shiny little fruits from the little bag and popped it into his mouth, nodding in approval. The juices splashed in his mouth when he bit down. "You want one, Shila?" the boy asked Azula.

She held up her hand and declined the offer, as much as she liked spicy food. "I don't think that's the best stuff to eat while out on a run." She and Lee looked over to Qilaq, whose dark skin was taking on a reddish hue. He let his tongue hang out and panted a bit. Spicy food was not at all his thing. His sinuses felt as clean as a freshly carved ice chute, though.

Lee laughed outright at the spectacle and even Azula let a few chuckles slip out.

"Okay, that was good and hot," said the Northerner wiping his tongue. "Now let's go back so I can get some water in me." The three of them jogged back along their original path, but after about half a mile they slowed to a meander, silently taking in the din of eclectic dialects and the smell of dirty merchandise and everything else. This was the Earth Kingdom, after all.

When they were about a block away from home, Lee asked something that seemed out of nowhere. "Were you a bad guy, too?" he asked, looking up at Qilaq with large inquisitive eyes and a quaver in his tiny voice.

"Wh…Hmm," Qilaq was taken aback by the abruptness, but it was a fair question and one that deserved a good and ambiguous answer. "I was a bad guy to somebody."

"Papa says that the people who do water magic and ground magic were the bad guys, but now nobody is the bad guys."

"That's right," the water magician confirmed, kneeling down to his little friend. "When the war ended everybody became friends. Well, at least everybody tried to be friends."

"Nu ah," Lee disagreed. "There's this bully down the street and he calls me names when I walk by. He calls me 'Red Worm.' That's a bad thing to call somebody." Azula stood behind the two, taking the gravity of the conversation in. She wasn't very familiar with the derogatory terms directed at Fire Nation peoples, but she could gather the meaning behind the insults. Majestic Dragons reduced to slithering 'Red Worms.'

"Really?" Qilaq responded tilting his head a bit. "Well, maybe we should go see this bully and have a talk with him."

"Really?" Azula asked, quirking an eyebrow. She wondered if that pepper had sent her Water Tribe companions mind wonky.

"I don't know if that's a good idea," said Lee tentatively.

"It isn't," confirmed Azula.

Qilaq was optimistic. "It'll be fine. We'll just walk up, you can tell him to stop, Lee, and we'll act… imposing."

"We're imposing?" Now she knew he was off.

"To a five-year old, sure. All adults are imposing to kids. Come on, Lee." The child seemed reluctant, as did Azula, but the boy lead the way east down to the end of the street. There, two boys were playing in front of a house with a few shingles missing from its verdant roof. It looked as though a pile of replacements had been stacked right next to the staircase to the front door. There were no signs of life in the house.

The smaller of the boys tapped his larger friend and pointed to the approaching foreigners. The big boy couldn't have been more than a year older than Lee, though he was nearly twice his width. The two kids frowned at Lee's approach.

"What are you doing here?" asked the larger boy scornfully.

Lee faltered and turned to Qilaq who smiled warm and motioned forward. The Fire Nation boy swallowed and clenched his fists. He stepped up to his bully. "You should stop calling people Red Worm," he said with firm resolve.

The two boys laughed like farm animals. "But that's what you are," said the wide child. "You're a slimy Red Worm. That's what you are," and they laughed again, but a little less under the glare of the two grown ups standing in the street. Of course, once he realized what grown ups these were, the large boy narrowed his beady eyes.

"You're Water Savages," he said, pointing at the two blue clad 'savages' in question. "You live in the ice and don't cook your food. You eat things while their still alive. That's what you do."

"Charming, isn't he," Qilaq said under his breath with a crooked smile.

"Truly," agreed Azula.

"Qilaq and Shila are nice," said Lee, raising his voice to his adversary. "They don't do things like that. They're nicer people than you."

Both Qilaq and Azula felt their hearts flutter at the absolute honesty with which Lee defended them. The boy was not just another mindless innocent. He carried within him a flame of brotherhood that shined out and warmed even the cold, jaded hearts of the Northern Warrior and the former Fire Nation princess.

"Shut up, Red Worm!" the bully retorted. "Go back to where you came from!"

At this remark, Azula's adopted a black look and struck down, stomping her foot and sending a thin line of fire between Lee's legs. The little blaze flared up in front of the large boy, singing his eyebrows. The smaller, mute boy was off and running down the street, while the bully retreated in through the front door of his home in a panic.

Lee gapped, stunned by what had just happened and he examined his hands for evidence that they had summoned the flame.

Azula smiled wryly, very pleased with her covert attack. She had managed quite a bit of control with such a slight movement. It was a good sign of her prowess returning.

Qilaq just gaped. After the initial shock wore off he grabbed Azula firmly by the arm and gave her a shove back towards the inn. "We're going back." He turned to the boy. "Now, Lee." Lee turned and obeyed immediately. He had never heard Qilaq serious. He sounded like his papa.

After arriving home, Qilaq told Lee to keep his lips sealed about the incident and then followed Azula upstairs. Once in their room, the Waterbender slammed the door shut. He was five paces away from livid. Azula was actually a little tense. It wasn't that she hadn't seen him like this before, but it was in such stark contrast to his regular mood that it was slightly frightening.

"Az… Shila…" he corrected and calmed himself. "In the name of the Moon, why did you do that?"

"You're the one who said, 'We should go see this bully and talk with him," retaliated Azula.

"Yes, 'talk with him,' not burn his face off."

"Oh, come on. Don't tell me that little brat didn't deserve it."

"He did, but…" Qilaq thought about remarking on her impulsive behavior with a few choice negatives, but thought better of it and reassessed the situation. "Well, maybe this whole thing will just blow over. Ahg, that is so _ridiculously_ optimistic. With our luck it'll blow _up_ before it blows over." he turned and squeezed his fingers at Azula. "Control, Shila. There is a time and a place for things like that."

"Don't get preachy with me, 'brother,'" Azula came back with a challenging lean towards her lecturer.

"Yes, sis." Qilaq threw up his hands and walked over to the black scorch mark on the wall. "Dammit," he muttered.


	9. Fiends in Savage Clothing

Note to Reader: I came to a sinister realization, today: this story may rub up against the 75,000-word mark. Maybe even beyond that. At this point in the story, we've only just finished Act 2 of what I think will be a Five Act work. Regardless, it's done when it's done and it will be done, unless I die, of course [knocks on wall].

Feedback is always appreciated. Otherwise…

Enjoy the heady symbolism.

**Chapter 9: Fiends Abound**

Qilaq had pulled a chair into the corner of the room. It was next to the window and opposite the door. He half-dozed and half-mused throughout the evening, foregoing dinner. Aimi didn't feel that he should go without food, though, so she brought up a plate of dumplings before returning to eat with her family and Azula.

Lee was peculiarly quiet and, when prompted by his momma to talk about it, he just shook his little head dramatically. Aimi didn't press her son, while Nobu sat seemingly unaware of anything but the food on his plate and the pressure in his chest.

After dinner, Azula thanked the mousy cook for the food and returned to her room. Qilaq was still sitting in that same corner, staring at the wall through the rays of fading light that angled through the window. She noticed the plate Aimi had brought up was clean and she smiled, for no good reason.

The two of them sat in a vacuous silence. The sun disappeared behind the hills and darkness blanketed the town.

At last, Azula turned to say something, but stopped when she heard a commotion of feet and hollers off in the distance. She got up and hung her head out of the window. A mob of enraged townsfolk came down the street from the east, rumbling and brandishing the requisite torches and farming implements that seemed to manifest whenever angry people with a purpose coalesced.

"And now, it's blown up," said Qilaq from his darkened corner. "Wonderful." A mild orange glow rose from the street, like a luminous low hanging fog, as the mob stopped in front of the inn. The hollers were loud, commanding and nigh incomprehensible at first, then they died down a bit to a low grumble of angry murmurs.

Nobu noticed the light approaching behind the curtained window of his study. He stood and went to the front door. As he moved to open it, he heard something behind him and turned. His wife stood pale in the dinning room doorway, holding her large black frying pan tight with both hands. She didn't need to vocalize; her fear was plain on her face.

Light feet pitter-pattered down the stairs. Lee stood in the middle of the staircase with his red, wood dragon in his left hand and his Firebender figurine clenched in his right. "Papa, I…" Lee didn't want to get in trouble, but he felt like it was his fault. He wanted to tell his papa he was sorry, but the words shrank away in his tiny throat before they could come out of his mouth.

"Go upstairs, Lee," said Nobu calmly. His son obeyed immediately and ran upstairs.

"Nobu…" tried his now shaking wife, all her color gone, say for the pale yellow in her eyes.

"Don't worry yaself, Aimi. I'll handle this."

"Oh, it's really happening this time," she shuddered like a tiny wren in winter.

"We came here to get away from this," he said with a defeated resolve. "No safe place left, I guess."

Upstairs, Lee stopped in the doorway to the room where the Northerner's were staying. Qilaq saw the frightened little boy standing there and drew up a smile. "Come on, Lee. You can sit here," said the Waterbender, slapping his knee. Lee ran over on wobbly legs to Qilaq who picked the boy up and sat him on his lap.

Azula heard the front door open and then close again. The mob sucked all the sound out of the night air as Nobu stepped out into the street and faced them. "Your father's taking care of it, Lee," Azula assured the little boy, who was still clutching his two favorite toys. She wasn't very hopeful about the situation, but she couldn't let Lee see that.

"I'm sorry," said Nobu in a gruff but apologetic tone, "but I don't think I have enough rooms to put all ya up for the night."

The man at the front of the mob spoke out. He was broad shouldered with a green short-sleeved shirt that clung to the tops of his biceps. A full brown beard matted his chiseled jaw and his bright green eyes gleamed in the fire light. "It's time for you Fire Nation Fiends to leave."

"Leave?" coughed the innkeeper with what sounded like amusement.

"That's right," affirmed the man with a clear bass voice. "What, did roasting people alive make you deaf, too? Leave!"

Nobu was certainly not at a loss for words, but no matter what he said it would make no difference. He was a realist and could only make his case in simple, practical terms, so, in spite of the adversity, he did. "I pay my dues. I plumb drains and mend roofs, when I can. I think me and my family deserve a bit of peace, like everyone else here."

"Our children aren't safe!" trumpeted a high feminine voice from within the crowd. The mob rumbled with agreement.

"You think money and community work makes you acceptable?" voiced a tall, gangly man next to the mob leader. Nobu noticed the man's tunic resembled a potato sack to the point that it probably _was_ a potato sack.

"I try to," answered the gaunt, grizzled innkeeper. "Yes, I think it should. I brought my family here to escape the fear of being, at any moment, killed by some maniHACk…" he struggled to suppress his wretched hacking. Aimi covered her mouth to stifle a worried gasp as she watched through the front door she had cracked ajar. Nobu regained his composure and picked up where he left off. "…on the street, dying for the sake of destruction."

"Face it, Fire Fiend…"

"Red Worms!" a shrill voice interjected.

"…you're a menace, you and you're whole family. All of you. We don't want you here. We never wanted you here, so just leave. Get outta here or we'll get you out ourselves."

"You aren't going to force us out of our home," Nobu stated firmly, while avoiding any sort of malice in his gruff tone.

"Home? Where do you think you are?" scoffed the man in a potato sack.

"You took my Wei from me!" cried a high, breaking voice from the back of the crowd. Nobu thought about arguing his case further, but it would do no good. How could he argue with their grief?

"This is our home," said the man with the sharp green gaze. "This is our country, so get out!"

The mob leader pointed down the empty westward road. The angry townsfolk completely block the eastern way.

Nobu had no choice. He suppressed his reflexive coughing and growled away the gunk in his throat just enough to make his next words as clear as the lustrous amber flames that wreathed his black pupils.

"My family and I will stay, safe. I will not yield, in this."

The mass of bodies quivered as people shouted and threw out their fists towards the innkeeper.

"Red Menace!"

"Get 'em!"

"Put out your torches! He'll use them against us!"

As everyone stomped out their torches and the orange light shifted into silver-laced darkness under the moon, nearly full, the hulk at the front of the crowd stomped into a firm fighting stance. The tall man and a stout adolescent with wide feet formed up on either side of the large leader.

Nobu tensed his haggard sinews and grimaced as he took a challenging position. Several of the more timid people in the back of the now tenebrous crowd ran off, while the rest cheered for blood even louder, now that the Fire Fiend seemed to be readying an attack.

The mob leader didn't give Nobu a chance. He stomped his left foot and a melon sized hunk of the earthen street shot into the air. The ex-boiler stoker could barley manage to take in a breath to generate a flame. Regardless, he advanced and threw his fist straight at his opponents. A flame sprung from the innkeeper's hand.

There was a dull crack, as the piece of street ushered up by the brawny man smashed into Nobu's hand, snuffing out his flame. The grizzled Firebender gasped in pain and, before he could cradle his broken hand, two more rocks, smaller than the first, slammed into his side. The force of the blows knocked him to the ground and he slid to a halt, splayed out in a heap.

Azula winced as she watched the three Earthbenders stone Nobu. They could kill him. She turned to Qilaq who wore a blank expression while he covered little Lee's ears with his callused brown hands.

As the three men descended on the fallen Firebender to the cheer of the crowd behind them, the front door opened and a frying pan flew at the mob leader's head. He easily blocked the weakly thrown object with his large forearm. They halted their advance.

"Nobu!" Aimi cried, running to her injured husband. She knelt by him and started to cough up sobs.

The brawny Earthbender walked up behind the woman and coiled his huge hand around her neck. She let out a little yelp as he tossed her into the stone wall of her home. "We'll deal with you later, whore," he said.

A blue shape flew out of the inn's second story window and pounced on the large man about to stomp on Nobu. It was Azula. She dug her knee into the man's kidney and pulled her fist back with an enraged look on her face, but before she could unleash a fireball on her victims head, the tall man grabbed her by the arm and the hair. He tossed her across the street, pulling a few strands of her shoulder length hair out in the process.

Azula quickly recovered and rose. She shook her head and flipped her raven locks out of her eyes. One unruly strand still clung to her cheek. She cursed herself for diving into battle without tying her hair back.

The three men rallied to face their new foe. "What are you doing?" asked the hulking man as he rose from the ground. "You're protecting _them_?"

Azula didn't say a word. Any idiot could see what she was doing. She just adjusted her stance, pointed her open hands at Nobu's attackers and narrowed her golden eyes. Up in the window she had leapt from she saw Lee watching with Qilaq behind. They both wore a look of dumbfounded awe, like when she had almost set the bully kid on fire.

Her foes surrounded her. The crowd had recovered from the initial shock of her decent from the sky and had resumed their cries for blood: her blood. The tense young woman's eyes darted around, trying to adjust to the dim twilight. She could make out the faces of the three men, but the crowd was an indistinct writhing blob of fluxing, screaming silhouettes.

The stout adolescent charged her with a scream. She turned and feigned a charge forward, but as he swung wide at her head, the lithe woman ducked and swept her foot under her attacker, taking his legs out and causing him to fall flat on his back. He gasped as his wind left him.

The bulkiest of the three took this opportunity and stomped, causing the ground under Azula to jump and catapult her westward. She rolled to cushion the hard fall, but still ending up on her face.

She scrambled to her feet and ran at her enemies as fast as she could. The two standing Earthbenders pulled more pieces of the street up and punched them at the charging woman. One whiffed over her as she ducked, while another roughly grazed her arm, catching on her robe a bit.

When she was in range, in one fluid motion she turned her back to the men, crouched, leapt into the air, raised her right leg high over her head and, as she struck her foot down on the street, a bright burst of orange fire exploded out in a wave and threw the two Earthbenders to the ground.

Every face, every expression of shock, horror, awe, pain and anger was illuminated by the flash. More of the mob ran off and, as the initial flame dissipated and died away, the darkness returned, deeper than ever. "Wow, I knew it," said Lee in awe of the spectacle. "Wow, Firebending." The boy turned and noticed Qilaq leaving the room. The boy followed him down to the kitchen.

"Stand back, Lee," said the swarthy man. Lee did obeyed and watched the magic from the base of the staircase.

Qilaq motioned at the wall on the opposite end of the kitchen, hand over hand, as though he were dragging in a fishing line. The faucet started to wobble and clang in the cracking wall.

Outside, Azula turned when she heard something happening in the house, but she had to react when the tall man got up and punched another rock at her. She winched as it glanced off her bicep and threw her other fist out, setting the man's potato sack tunic aflame. He fell to the ground and writhed, screaming.

In the kitchen, a huge volume of white water spewed from the faucet and streamed through the air towards the Waterbender. He swirled the flood of liquid around his body and then whipped his hand towards the open door. The hovering stream of water split in two and one doused the man on fire. The other stream drenched the fire starter.

"Wow," gaped Lee in further awe.

"Stay there," said the Waterbender as he shut the boy into the house.

Azula just stood there like an irked wet cat. This was the second time that man had soaked her. Unless it was a bath, she detested being wet.

Qilaq stepped out into the street and drew the water off both his fiery companion and the tall man who was now comfortably not on fire. The Waterbender then turned to the gawking crowd in the shadows, while the water rose into the warm night air like bloated soap bubbles.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said with a cordial smile, "return to the tranquility of your homes." Some of the people in the dark talked amongst themselves while others started to get very vocal about their anger towards this intervention.

"Please," the amiable Waterbender pleaded. Now the shadows were spitting slurs at him. "I warn you, you don't want to _test_ me," he said, evening out his voice.

The crowd leaned forward as though it was about to charge as one black mass.

"Get the _fuck_ _outta here!_" Qilaq screamed, his visage instantly wrinkled with menace, as he whipped some of the floating water out of the air and into a rough sword of ice.Other globules flash froze into jagged shards like razor, crystalline stars. All the warmth was sucked out of the summer night. Everyone went cold.

The mob quickly dissipated and ran off down the street. Even the most stalwart of them lost heart when left in the chilling presence of the menacing Waterbender.

Azula was frozen in shock until she noticed the last of the mob had gone. She took a step towards her companion. "Qilaq…?" she said softly. He turned on her with a stygian look. The moonshine highlighted his swarthy skin. His dark blue eyes pierced the night and her blood went cold at the sight. She put on a stern face to mask her fear.

There was a dreadful silence.

Qilaq closed his eyes and let out a calming breath. The air felt warmer all of a sudden and the hovering frozen shards and icy blade melted instantly, splashing into tiny puddles all over the now pitted street.

He walked over to Aimi who was cradling her husbands head. Azula followed suit. "Here, let me see," said the Waterbender, gently motioning the tear-soaked woman away. Nobu tensed in pain under the feather-light weight of Qilaq's hand upon his side. "He's got a broken rib and some internal bleeding." Aimi let out a crestfallen moan. "You're going to have to live with the pain," Qilaq continued, looking into the injured innkeeper's half open eyes. "But I'll stop the bleeding."

"You can do that?" Aimi quavered in disbelief. She took the words right out of Azula's mouth.

Qilaq said nothing as he grabbed the man's gnarled right hand and set the bones. Stifled gasps of pain pulsed from the injured Firebender's mouth. The Northerner then rested his hands on Nobu's side and torso. The broken man convulsed and wretched. It was making Qilaq's job much more difficult. He pushed hard on Nobu's chest. After a few agonizing seconds, the innkeeper vomited up a white fluid lace with blood and then relaxed. He started breathing evenly and fainted.

The relentless tension finally broke and the three kneeling by Nobu's side could breathe easy with him. A thankful tear streamed down Aimi's already wet cheek as they gathered up her husband carefully and brought him into the inn.

Qilaq didn't feel he needed to vocalize how incredibly lucky the man was. He survived and that's all that mattered.

After he was in bed, the Northerner left and went out the front door. Azula followed after she had confirmed that Aimi and the now present Lee were okay. She walked out the front door and turned to see Qilaq leaning on the wall to her left.

"Go inside and get some sleep," he said without looking at her, his arms crossed. "I'll stand guard and discourage any would be trouble makers."

She nodded, still shaken from the whole experience and went up to her bed. She lay awake throughout the night. It wasn't until the first hints of sunlight brightened the dark that she was finally able to fall into an exhausted sleep.

At high noon, the rays of the summer sun warmly touched the hairs on her arm and she awoke. Today was the day. She shoved the covers off her naked legs and quickly dressed to leave. As she went downstairs, she noticed the door to Aimi and Nobu's room was ajar. She wondered how they were doing.

In the room, she saw that Nobu was asleep in the middle of a large bed. Aimi was asleep sitting up against the nightstand, with Lee's head resting in her lap.

Azula smiled and then she wondered about Qilaq. When she opened the front door, she found him in the exact same position he had taken the night before: leaned against the wall, arms folded, and a watchful gaze surveying the street and passers by. There were very few people out on this street today, Azula noticed.

"Have you been up all night?" she asked her silent companion.

"I think so," he responded, leaning the back of his head against the wall and rubbing his eyes, under which dark, purplish bags drooped. "I may have nodded off for a couple minutes, but other than that… seeing as how you aren't throttled, I think my discouragement was successful."

"What now?"

"Now we leave." He pointed vaguely over the houses. Over the far away din of the bustling town, there was the faint sound of the enormous stone train grinding against the stone track. "What can we do? Our train's pulling into the station. It's time for us to go. Don't make this more complicated," he said as he pushed off the wall.

Azula hesitated and looked back into the house, but then reluctantly decided. "I'm not going to. Let's go." It almost felt wrong, leaving their hosts in such a sorry state. "I must be going soft," she mumbled to herself. It was an unfamiliar feeling, radiating from the pit of her stomach to the bridge of her nose, but, as Qilaq so coldly stated, it was time for them to go.

As they sauntered off towards the train station, a voice called to them. "Bye Qilaq. Bye Shila." It was Lee, standing in the open doorway of his home.

Azula smiled, feeling even worse about leaving. Thankfully, Qilaq turned and spoke. "Tell your momma and papa 'thanks' from both of us."

"I will," said the boy and the two of blue-robed benders walked down the street and out of sight of the inn.


	10. Escape and Plot

Note to Reader: A little longer than usual, but full of action and all that other good stuff. I haven't had time to fully review the previous chapters, but I revised chapter one: fixed all the grammar stuff and added a bit to the description.

Have at it.

**Chapter 10: Escape and Plot**

The palace dinning room was meant to accommodate throngs of royal guests, so it was a cavernous, dark-crimson room, like every other room in the palace. Gold trimmed the corners and jutting woodwork and an astonishingly long table stretched from one end of the room to the other.

Normally, it was surrounded by high back chairs seating high-nosed aristocrats, but today it only had two such chairs positioned at the far end, closest to the kitchen. In those chairs were cradled the butts of the two most powerful people in the Fire Nation: the Fire Lord, Zuko, cutting up the last of a particularly well done cut of gamey meat, and his wife, Fire Lady Mai, who was amused by the simple, silly things her husband did when nobody of political import was watching.

"You always ask for it so overcooked," said Mai, resting her chin in her delicate hand.

Zuko looked up from his slicing and responded. "It's not 'overcooked.'"

"These are choice cuts from the best animals around and you insist that the best chefs in the Fire Nation burn it to a crisp."

"I like it well done."

Mai smiled and noticed that her husband still hadn't touched his vegetables. "Zuko…" she said in her deep, feminine voice, pointing to the flora in question.

"I know I haven't touched my vegetables. I know they're good for me." He poked at the leafy green and red potpourri on his plate. He had developed resentment for flowery plant matter during his years in the palace.

Zuko mused on how they employed the best chefs in the Fire Nation, as his wife had stated, yet they kept serving him artistically presented salads that either tasted like dried leaves picked off the street or unused parchment. At least when it was tasteless, he could smother it in pepper sauce and, essentially, eat it like soup.

He leaned away from today's repellently fragrant pile of crunchy leaves. "I just don't like this stuff." he finally said. He looked around his chair at Naoki, who stood stiff by one of the square pillars embedded in the russet wall. "How about you, Naoki? You like salad?" asked the Fire Lord, trying to pawn off his veggies on somebody else's taste buds.

"Sir, not particularly, sir. Anyway, I ate a helping of chipped… something meat just an hour ago, sir." The bodyguard's face plate was rubbing against his scar and he desperately wanted to scratch his chin. He couldn't, though. His Fire Academy instilled discipline wouldn't let him act without orders and his orders were to guard the Fire Lord from all conceivable and inconceivable threats. Nowhere in those orders was chin scratching stipulated, so he just stood at attention in discomfort.

Naoki's consistent, extremely formal manner amused Zuko, though the guard's near constant presence was starting to wear on Mai. The only place where she had her husband all to herself was in the bedroom and even there she knew that the guard was just beyond the wall. She tried to put it out of her mind.

The Fire Lord let his fork clatter on his plate. He winced as he rubbed his severely scared left eye with his fingers.

"Zuko, are you alright?" asked his concerned wife.

"Mm, it's getting worse. The doctors say it's inevitable that I'll lose sight in it." He stopped rubbing and smiled at his wife. "But I still hold to hoping they're wrong."

"So do I," said Mai with a weak smile. Her concern overtook her hope.

Meanwhile, Bai Tan was seated comfortably in his favorite thinking spot under the white evergreen tree in the palace garden. He had already walked about the garden and confirmed that he was, in fact, alone.

"The Fire Lord is under voluntary house arrest. Let me see… what can I do with this? Not very much. Not until Da Tan returns with the girl, the fearsome girl. It does mean that he'll be out of the public eye. He'll be safe, as well. I can't have him die, yet. First, he must fall. He must fall and pull his regime down with him."

"Perhaps… those random rebels seem to be cause a lot of grief, but nothing strong, nothing focused, nothing lasting. They need to pool their efforts if they wish to affect any significant change." He growled, rather distressed at the frequency with which he had been talking to himself, as of late.

"I do wish Da Tan was here," he sighed, heavily. "I can be myself around him. As it stands, only this white pine knows my honest thoughts." He feared madness was overtaking him and soon his reason would falter and his motives be brought to bear.

It didn't matter, though. He would give his sanity freely if it meant the utter ruin of the Fire Nation. Slowly, a plan was growing within him and consuming his every thought: a plague infecting in his mind's eye. "Yes, so long as they bring about their own end, so long as their funeral pyre is kindled by their hand."

* * *

"It's best you just put it out of your mind," Qilaq said to Azula as they made their way down the street, side by side. "Forget about them. They'll take care of themselves." The young woman's expression didn't betray any worry, but Qilaq saw it in the luster of her eyes. "Hey, just think," he endeavored to change the subject with another artful grin, "soon we'll be in Ba Sing Se. All our troubles will be over when we get there."

"Really?" she questioned with a thick air of doubt.

"Yep. Trust me." The Firebender narrowed her eyes at his ambiguous plead for faith. They squeezed shoulder to shoulder as they waded through the thickening market crowd. The mingled smell of plum-blossom, ripe trout and feet assaulted their sinuses. Whatever it was, it was very popular, drawing what seemed like most of the town to it.

Qilaq and Azula stood out as blue dots in the throng of otherwise earth toned clothing that walked around covering the various bodies of the townsfolk. The thought crossed Azula's mind that the two of them may be recognized by members of the mob that they had fought last night. It was dark and they were strangers to this place, but they could still be identified.

She still found herself dodging the gaze's of people that may recognizer her. It was slight comfort that nobody seemed to recognizer her as Azula: The Former Fire Nation Princess. Now they would recognizer her as the Firebender dressed like someone from the Northern Water Tribe, who attacked and burned several townsfolk last night.

A few pairs of eyes followed the two of them, but they didn't gaze very long. Qilaq had put on a rather somber face and occasionally locked his dark eyes with those of the gawkers', who would then turn away as though they were looking at something else.

After they turned a corner onto a less populated street, Qilaq chuckled to himself. "You really did take it to that guy, though," he said to his feisty companion. "That was pretty cool."

Azula smiled, proud of herself, but also happy with the compliment. "Which guy?" she asked, raising her eyebrows with an impish smile.

Qilaq laughed jauntily. Her levity about the situation surprised him. There was hope for her sense of humor, but it occurred to him that he probably shouldn't be promoting her violent behavior, not because he wasn't himself violent at times, but because he liked not being attacked by random people on the street, out for blood.

He put his rough hand on her shoulder. Azula looked at the intrusive appendage and then at the smiling Qilaq. Her expression melted into an odd look, like confusion and annoyance all nestled under a furrowed brow. Her companion just smiled and looked down the street, with his hand still on her shoulder and then, after they turned the corner at the local hair salon, he shoved her through the front door of the shop.

Azula's balance was too good for her to fall, but the push was strong enough that she staggered all the way into the middle of the room, where Zan, the hairdresser that had cut Azula's tangled tresses when they arrived in Xidezhen, was half done giving a man a shave.

"Whoa, whoa," said the jowly woman, drawing her razor away from her customer's neck.

Azula was about to yell at Qilaq, but he cut her off. "Stay hidden for a bit and then signal me when the train's about to leave."

"What?" questioned the young woman with bile. How dare he nearly push her down and then give her some ord… She noticed his face and tone had waxed completely serious. He didn't even look at her when he spoke.

Something was wrong.

"What's going on, hon?" asked Zan. Azula hid behind a chest of doors against the wall and looked at her hairdresser, putting her finger to her lips.

Zan wasn't quite sure what was happening, but she was smart enough to play along.

"What is thi-" started the half-shaved man before Zan pulled him back in the chair.

"Don't move or you'll get nicked," she warned and resumed scraping the white gunk off of the man's face with her razor.

"Well, look who it is," said Qilaq affably to the two mercenaries as they came to a halt right in front of him. "How are my two favorite head-hunters?" Both of the men grasped their weapons. "Easy boys. We don't want to make a scene." Qilaq gestured around at the passing pedestrians.

Azula peeked around the corner of the chest of drawers and, at the sight of the two men who had been hunting her all this time, a stew of mild fear and vengeful rage simmered inside her stomach. She was compelled to leap from her hiding spot and roast the men alive, but her double-edged fear kept her in check. One part was the fear that she wasn't good enough to win against both mercenaries. The other fear was how her Waterbending companion may react. Qilaq appeared to be handling it, anyway.

"I don't know. I'm feelin' like I do," said Fu Li, referring to the potential mayhem with a crooked grin and a twitch of his pointy nose, "especially if it means turning you into a pincushion." In a flash of motion, the little man pulled an arrow from his quiver and threaded it on his bow. A few passers by jumped away from the sudden, violent action.

Qilaq put his hands up and spoke like a propitious salesman. "Oh, but why waste yourselves when you could just do a little haggling and get your prize gift wrapped?"

"Huh?" said a perplexed Fu Li.

Da Tan put his thick hand on his partner's shoulder. "We're listening."

Everything in Azula's baser mind was telling her to make a break for it, now, and hope that she could outrun them, but… Qilaq wouldn't really betray her. Would he? No, it was a trick. That's why he pushed her in here and told her to wait. He was lying to them, obviously, and they were falling for his ploy.

"Good man. Good men," said the Waterbender with a nod. "Smart. Come with me. We'll work out the details along the way." The three men walked off down the road shoulder to shoulder. The large man quickly glanced down and met his partner's gaze communicating an unspoken plan. Fu Li cracked a subtle, devious smile and checked the dagger strapped to the small of his back.

After she was sure that the three of them had gone, she came out of her hiding place and walked out of the salon calmly, but with a purpose.

"Bye, hon," Zan called after her. She then returned to her work as though nothing out of the ordinary had transpired.

Qilaq's senses weren't fuzzy from the lack of sleep. He never went "fuzzy," but his periphery was completely blank and his field of vision felt flat. He could see the images but couldn't quite judge where they were going and at what speed. His brain was nagging his body to collapse into a deep slumber, but his will wasn't going to let that happen. His brain wasn't the boss of him.

With bloodshot eyes, he looked at the two men walking to his right. "So," he started, looking to the smaller of the two men, "if I recall correctly, your name is Fu Li. Am I right?" Fu Li didn't turn to meet his escort's gaze. He just darted his sharp little eyes to his left and growled something incomprehensible under his breath. He rubbed the bandage that covered the stab wound he had received the last time he and the Waterbender had met. Qilaq moved on and looked up at the towering mercenary directly to his right. "I don't think I caught your name, big guy."

"I didn't toss it," said Da Tan. The man's voice was as deep as a desert well, but the humor in his words made Qilaq think of a desert well with a clown at the bottom of it.

He giggled, "Fair enough. Don't suppose it matters. We're going to be going our separate ways here in a second, anyway."

After another block or two (he wasn't keeping track) the punchy Waterbender led the two men to the mouth of a dark alleyway between two tall, white stone buildings. "This way," he said as he started down the claustrophobic passage, bereft of light even under the midday Sun.

"No," boomed Da Tan stopping at the precipice of the shadows. "We're not doing that. No shortcuts. We're taking the long way. The _scenic_ way."

Obviously, this man was no thick fool. Qilaq was really hoping he could get away with it, but now he could only drag them around town until he got Azula's signal. "Alright," he sighed. "We'll go around. It's your time."

At the same time, Azula was standing at the far west end of the transit station platform, looking as nonchalant as she could while keeping an eye on the windowless, gray car at the back of the train. She remembered several Earthbenders coming out of it when she and Qilaq first rode into town and she deduced that they were the ones that pushed the train along the track.

After a few minutes, she keyed in on a couple loud voices coming towards her.

"It sure is loud in the push car," said one of three men uniformed in tight, short-sleeved, yellow shirts and shorts, wearing green ankle braces and hats that looked like wide brimmed mixing bowls.

"What? Ha ha, I'm just kiddin'," laughed another one of them.

"Yeah, I gathered."

"It get's old after about the second time you hear it," said the third man to the first.

"Well, that's what makes it a classic," said the cheerful second man. "Anyway, I keep tellin' it long enough, it'll be true. One day, I really will be deaf on the job."

"Too bad that won't shut you up."

"What? Ha ha, just kiddin'. Classic." Their voices died away as they filed into the stone car at the back of the train.

After the door to the car shut behind them, Azula walked briskly into a narrow gap between two buildings just out of sight of the platform. She looked up into the crisp, cyan sky and then out of the ally to see if she was being watched. When she confirmed she was alone, she slid her feet out over the solid, sand-laced ground and then thrust her fist straight up, shooting off a bright plume of orange fire that billowed high above the buildings. After a few seconds' burn, she stopped and rushed out of the opposite end of the alley before anyone examined the source of the flame.

About a half a mile away from the station, the three men were making their way down a rather sparsely populated street. "I had a buyer, but that deal fell through, so she's on the market," Qilaq said to the two mercenaries. They stopped. A man opposite them was staring up into the northern sky. They followed his gaze and saw a pillar of fire rising above the city like a geyser.

Da Tan and Fu Li furrowed their brows at the odd sight and then it struck them: their quarry was there. This man was luring them away from her. But, before either of the men could move to action, Qilaq struck first, stabbing his rigid fingers into Fu Li's bandaged wound like iron rods. Fu Li screamed in pain and Da Tan staggered back a step, but he managed to reflexively chop the Waterbender's throat with the edge of his giant hand.

Qilaq felt his Adam's apple crush his windpipe before snapping back into place. He choked as the huge obelisk of a man picked him up and hurled him down the street. The Waterbender broke his fall with his arm and rolled end over end.

All his vision went hazy as water and dirt clogged his eyes. His arms and legs felt as though they were separated from the rest of his body. He struggled to rise, spitting up dirt while trying to catch his breath at the same time.

"Again! Ahowwuhg," Fu Li moaned, writhing on the ground and clutching his reopened wound. "It hurts…" He looked at his partner, who was just standing, not smashing that vicious Water Savage into paste. "What are you…? Crush him!"

Da Tan was reluctant to smear a man in front of the myriad onlookers, who gathered at a safe distance, trembling with confused excitement, but this Waterbender was too dangerous to be left alive to further foil their attempts to capture the former Fire Nation princess. "Fine," he said with forced resolve.

At the station, Azula heard the conductor call out the stops along the way to the Earth Kingdom Capital. The train was about to grind away. She thought about waiting for Qilaq. She could even go and help him and end those two mercenaries, here and now. The two of them they could stay at the inn again, with Nobu, Lee and Aimi. She thought about how they had left the three Fire Nation immigrants and then… a vision of Qilaq screaming, turning to her with a malicious flash in his cold blue eyes… a chill ran up her spine like a flapping fish.

"Last call for Ba Sing Se and all stops en route!" yelled the conductor through cupped hands.

Such a vicious current ran just beneath his pacific surface. She didn't really know this man all that well, anyway. She considered trust, the trust he claimed to have in her. Her trust in him. It didn't seem like enough.

She'd be fine without him, anyway. She was strong, now. She'd manage. She turned and stepped onto the train.

Da Tan slammed his feet against the ground and tensed into a squat. Veins throbbed all over his bulging muscles and the street started to tremble. Fissures traced linear paths that connected in the shape of a large square and then, as the man grit his teeth and lifted his hands, a huge cube of earth rose out of the ground and levitated above his head.

A pipe running through the ground was snapped and water sprayed up and out of the gaping hole. The beastly Earthbender was quickly soaked. Qilaq heard the hiss of gushing water behind him, rolled over and, with a swipe of his palms, he froze the thin glaze of liquid. A crust of ice formed up to Da Tan's neck.

The giant block feel right back into the gap it had came from with an immense boom, as Da Tan broke his concentration to break out of his icy encasement. Qilaq scrambled to get his feet beneath him and, once up, set off at a run back to the train station.

The clever Waterbender had spent his day's touring the streets with Lee and making a mental map of the whole town. He had taken the two mercenaries on a circuitous route in order to waste time, but he had the quickest way back to the station already in his head. It was a harrowing effort for his fatigued brain to call up the route, but the adrenaline was helping with that.

The mighty Earthbender broke from his frozen restraint and ran after his assailant.

People about the train car chatted about this and that while Azula sat, looking out the open window behind her seat.

"You know, I heard that they're gonna start charging people to ride," said a man to the woman next to him, raising his bushy eyebrows.

"That's so ridiculous," responded the woman with crows-feet splaying from the corners of her eyes. "We already pay taxes for that and now they want to charge us per ride?"

"That's the price of progress, I guess."

Azula blocked out the conversation taking place across from her. She kept thinking that Qilaq could still come around the corner, get on the train and sit next to her with that stupid smile drawn on his face.

"All aboard!" the conductor wailed out the door before slamming it shut and walking up the narrow aisles to the front of the train. The town seemed to be gliding back as the train slowly inched forward.

Azula let out a sigh as the train started to move, but then she heard something. A commotion. Someone cursing. Then she saw Qilaq run up onto the platform and dash at the train as it gained speed. The lithe young woman wrapped her arm around the partition between the windows and hung out of the portal with her arm outstretched.

Qilaq rushed to catch the train, which was now moving as fast as he was and still gaining speed. He ran as hard as he could, harder even than that, and he was running out of platform. Azula's arm was just out of reach.

The platform dropped out from beneath him as he leapt through the air and locked his grip around his companion's forearm. She winced as the full weight of the dangling man nearly pulled her arm out of its socket.

The ground fell away from beneath him as the track quickly rose above the town. The splendorous panorama of the hill wreathed valley came into view and Qilaq let out a nervous scream, wondering why Azula hadn't pulled him into the train car yet.

She was trying to, but it was all she could do to keep from falling out of the window. His grip on her arm was starting to loosen. She pulled with all her might, but she couldn't pull a full grown man up with one arm at full extension.

Arms wrapped around her waist and grabbed her shoulders pulling her back. She let go of the window and threw her other arm down to double her grip on Qilaq's slipping arm. The man with bushy eyebrows and the woman with crows-feet pulled Azula in and dragged the swarthy man attached to her through the portal.

Once safely in the car, the four tangled people released their grips and fell apart, panting and groaning.

"You two alright?" panted the man, lying back in his seat.

"You both are crazy, you know that?" gasped the older woman.

Azula glowered at her companion from the stone floor of the train. "Why are you so heavy, you thin idiot." Qilaq just laughed and looked up at his scowly savior. There was that smile, just as Azula had anticipated.

* * *

Da Tan had arrived at the transit platform just in time to see the train grind off with his two foes' hanging off the side of it. A long sigh helped to alleviate the man's seething irritation. It didn't matter. He knew they would probably end up in Ba Sing Se. That's the best place to pawn off a person for profit.

When he walked back to where he was frozen, he found his partner sitting on the rocky steps to somebody's front door, shaded by an awning. A man walked by and motioned to see if Fu Li needed any help.

"Get bent!" he yelled at the Good Samaritan.

"You first, buddy," retorted the miffed man, walking on.

Da Tan noticed his diminutive partner wasn't even in the mood to laugh at his own pun. "How's the leg?" he asked.

"He stabbed it… with his fingers… how do ya think it is? I rewrapped it."

The towering man wasn't really paying attention to his partner. He had noticed a tiny dot circling in the sky, so he pulled something from his belt. It was a wad of leather attached to a line.

"I tell ya," Fu Li seethed, "next time I see that guy I'm just gonna shoot. I'm gonna shoot so many… What are you doing?" he asked his friend, who was swinging the leather around. "Ah!" exclaimed the archer as a large bird swooped down out of nowhere. "What is that? That ain't a messenger hawk." Indeed, the bird was far more slender than a hawk, with long yellow legs and wings like crooked black swords.

"This is a falcon-kite. It's three times faster than your average messenger hawk and can cover almost twice the distance."

"Wow, it's pretty expensive, I'll bet."

"My brother is well connected. That's how we got the gold so quick."

"Bai Tan, huh? Hey there…" Fu Li stood carefully and tried to pet the bird perched on his friend's massive arm, while Da Tan unrolled a scroll from the streamlined canister on the bird's back. The raptor raised its wings and screeched at the injured man, who staggered back and hopped on his right leg to regain his balance.

"She doesn't like you," said the massive man, unrolling the piece of parchment.

"Yeah, well I don't like her, damn bird." The angry archer sat down carefully and adopted a forlorn look. "Why don't the chicks like me, Da Tan?"

"Because you are who you are," he rumbled while he read the letter.

"Well… I can't help what I am." The hit man reflected for a minute, then brightened a bit. "Hey, money's all the love I need, hee heh," he cackled in his unique way.

"Face it, Fu Li, you're repellant."

"Hey! Up your giant crack!"

"And, as to getting money, it looks like we might have competition for our prize." Da Tan crushed the paper in his huge fist.

"What? Who?"

"Some friend of the Fire Lord from the Southern Water Tribe."

"Aw, that's miles out. There's no way he'll beat us to the girl."

"Yeah, but to be sure, we've been sent a ride."

"A ride? What ride? Ah!" Fu Li exclaimed as a man atop a giant eel-hound rode up with another giant green beast in tow.

"There it is," said Da Tan as he patted the smooth green muzzle of the massive lizard monstrosity.

"Gentlemen, here is your mount," said the rider with lips puckered under his wispy black mustache. "My regards to Master Bai Tan," and as suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone in flurry of spindly green legs and dust.

"What the… An eel-hound. Rockin'. We'll be there in no time. Ah!" The beast growled at Fu Li and the man staggered back once again.

Da Tan mounted the beast and pulled his partner up. The Earthbending mercenary thought about his brother, the Fire Nation advisor, and shook his head. "He may be a two-faced maniac, but at least he's reliable."

* * *

When the couple that had helped Azula and Qilaq left them alone in the car, Azula decided to propose her plan and use her partner to her advantage. "We could set a trap for them," she said out of nowhere.

"What? Trap who?" he asked, rubbing some more dust from his kinky black hair.

"Those two bounty hunters. You seem set on protecting me, so it stands to reason that we take them out of the picture, take the initiative."

"To keep you safe?"

"To save your princess, oh, brave knight," she said with a humored sarcasm. "The best part is they will come to us. We can fight them on our terms. We'll have the advantage."

"Mhm." He noticed one of his short dreadlocks was frayed, so he twisted it back together by rubbing it between his palms.

"It's simple. I get them to chase me, draw them to a predetermined location that is most advantageous to us, your abilities in particular, and then-"

"I kill them," Qilaq finished for her, though those weren't the words she had intended to use. "You want me to kill them for you."

"I… I see no other option," she said with a very self-righteous air. "If we don't stop them, they'll just keep hunting us."

"Yes, you're right. They won't stop hunting you." he said leaning back in the wide, four-seated bench. "We'll do a bit more plotting once we're in the city. In the mean time, can you do me a favor, _sister_?"

Azula rolled her eyes. "What, _brother_?"

"Ha, can you keep a lookout while I catch some sheepolas?"

"What?" she questioned, furrowing her brow in confusion.

"Sleep. Watch out for me while I sleep."

It struck her that he hadn't slept since the night before last. "I'll keep watch," she agreed with an even tone.

"Thanks," and with that, he put his head back, relaxed, and went out like a pinched candle.


	11. Once and Always Friends

Note to Reader: I have incurred a massive update on the published text. That is to say, I have gone over the previous chapters and fixed the grammar issues and revamped a couple descriptive elements. On top of that, I labeled that little blue chapter list in the corner with the chapter titles instead of numbers. The story summary has been revamped, too. I also decided to post multiple chapters today in celebration of our reaching the half-way point in this story. It might even finish before the month's out, though, thinking about it now, that seems rather ludicrously hopeful on my part.

I also saw the "Last Airbender" Super Bowl spot and, as epic as it looks, I'm still not sold on M. Night directing. But let me say this to all of you fans worried that he's going to "ruin" it. He won't because no matter how good or bad the movie is the series is and always will be awesome.

"I Vow to Thee My Country" is an actual song you can look up and listen to.

Our two trailed transients finally arrive in Ba Sing Se and encounter a friendly ghost from Qilaq's past that is still very much alive.

**Chapter 11: Once and Always Friends**

The impenetrable stone city was ablaze. Qilaq stood there, his muscles shrank and tightened and were those of a boy. A raven haired girl stood in front of him. She wore a pure, white dress. His dad appeared behind him as a shadow. It swallowed young Qilaq in darkness but he could still see the city burn and the girl stand there. His own shadow extended past his father's and stopped at the fair child's feet. Tears streamed from her golden eyes. Blood seeped through and dyed her white dress a florid red. Her tears turned to blood and her being collapsed into a pool of sanguineous fluid. Qilaq was crying now at what he had done in the shadow of his dad. Then The Red Dragon came out of the setting sun and the fires rose and animate manikins ran in all directions, flailing and burning. The impenetrable stone city was ablaze, but his dad was a man again. His dad bent the sanguineous fluid into a blade of crimson ice and challenged the dragon. Dad lifted his sword to the endless worm and was burnt from head to toe to ash. Naught was left of his dad and Qilaq fell to his knees as The Red Dragon bore down on him, ready to devour his tiny form. All Qilaq could manage was, "My dad's dead. Why's my dad dead? Why's my dad dead?" The Red Dragon stopped with its fanged mouth agape around him, stench of sulfur stone like a suffocating sheet, and, before it could cry, it became a man. It became an old, bearded man and took up Qilaq in its arms and said, "I don't know why? I don't know why?"

Qilaq awoke when he felt something touch his cheek. He opened his eyes and saw Azula drawing her hand away from him. He wiped away the tear tracks from his face and sat up.

"We've arrived." Azula said without looking at the waking Waterbender.

"Well," he yawned wide, rubbing the gunk from his eyes, "good."

"You were crying in your sleep."

"I guess so. Weird, that's never happened before."

"Was it a bad dream?" she asked as though she were conducting a psych evaluation.

"Oh, yeah," he responded with a mild but emphatic nod. "But, it's over now."

After about a minute, the train passed through the towering Outer Wall and Qilaq brightened in the presence of familiar vistas. The beige barrier stretched beyond the horizon, scraping its symmetrical battlements against the smooth, could dotted sky as mountains do. The whole landscape was nothing but farmland, blooming at the peak of the summer harvest season. Rounded off squares of brown and green and russet and flax and corn silk blanketed the hilly landscape, like a patchwork quilt: endless reaches of growth, for which Qilaq's heart raced. Azula seemed unimpressed, though her eyes widened slightly to take in the full breadth of the view.

Once the stone conveyance sped over the farmland, it entered another tunnel running through the width of the massive Inner Wall. When it emerged on the other side it had slowed to a stop in front of a cracking, earthen platform.

The landscape here was just as massive as the enclosed farmland on the other side of the wall, but covered instead by the dark-green and dirt-brown roofs of low income housing projects and sprawling, low-level warehouses. Buildings were as crowded as possible, say for a few gaps, and several curved columns of jet-black smoke rose from points spread across the slummy section of the Ba Sing Se.

"Well, let's go," Qilaq said with a stretch.

"Get off here? In the Lower Ring?" Azula questioned.

"Yep. What? You think we can afford to stay in the Middle or the Upper Rings. We're broke, A… Shila," he caught himself from announcing her identity in public.

"_Broke_?"

"I didn't plan on spending all that time and money in Xidezhen. I'm tapped and unless you've got some gold keestered, we've got nothing."

"Sorry, I didn't dabble in the art of concealment during my time in…" she stopped herself. She wasn't "Azula the prisoner," right now. She was "Shila the Water Tribe/Fire Nation half-breed." Qilaq just laughed and Azula scowled and they got off the train.

When they stepped onto the sewage stained street, the cringing Firebender posed a question. "I thought you had a contact, here. Somebody well connected."

"Well connected people could live down here. Why can't they?"

"I was under the impression that 'well connected' implied well off, too. Is he some slum lord or something?" she asked stepping over a pile of squashed fish guts being licked by a stray tabby.

"He is most definitely _not_ a slum lord. He's a war hero. He probably lives and works in the Upper Ring, but I don't think we should see him, just yet. Actually, I don't think _you_ should see him at all."

Now Azula was just confused. "Who is this 'war hero' friend of yours?"

"The Dragon of the West. Iroh of the Fire Nation."

"Uncle…"

"_Iroh_ of the Fire Nation," he finished for her, looking around at the emaciated people walking the streets with wicker baskets slung over their backs and shoddy wooden carts in tow. They paid no attention the two blue-robed travelers.

"Right," she said, remembering herself once again. "How do you know him?" she said with a genuine curiosity.

"I met him during the war. We learned how to redirect lightning together."

"You know how to redirect lightning?" Now she was genuinely flabbergasted.

"Sure," responded the Waterbender nonchalantly. "I mean, I came up with the technique. Well… to be fair, it was a collaborative effort. Dangerous, to say the least, but we survived it."

Qilaq stopped in mid stride and narrowed his eyes as though he were examining some far away sign.

"Qilaq?" wondered Azula.

"No," he said in disbelief. "Nuan? Is that you?" A pale woman, wearing a black-green Zhiduo robe with cream colored trim on the baggy sleeves, stopped and looked at Qilaq with a quizzical look. Her face widened into a full smile almost instantly. She let out a joyous squeal, leapt at Qilaq, and hugged him with all her being, wrapping her arms and legs around his body while he staggered to keep his balance.

"Qilaq, aw, look at you, ice man. You haven't changed a bit," she said, dropping off of him and toning down her giddy voice to a comfortable mezzo-soprano.

"Well, I could feel you still have quite the grip, but what's with your hair?" Qilaq ran his hand over the woman's head. Her straight black cut was even shorter than his, her bangs not even long enough to hang down and touch her forehead.

"Oh, yeah," she responded, running her own rough hand through her hair. "I've been working a lot with the industrialization effort here, smelting and all that, and long hair tends to catch on fire, so…"

"I see. You're a little more… meaty," he calculated, tilting his head.

"Why, yes, I have been eating. How good of you to notice," she said without any sarcasm at all. "Seems like all my filling out took place below the waist, but hey, some guys like that."

"Some do, indeed," smiled Qilaq.

"So, who's your friend?"

The man turned to the wide-eyed Azula. "This is Shila, my half-sister."

"You don't have a half-sister," rebutted Nuan.

Qilaq had reacted as though she were a stranger, quickly realizing that Nuan knew him better than anyone alive, save Lim, maybe. "Right, well, that's what I tell people to keep them from asking questions and making inferences. She's my traveling companion."

"Traveling companion, eh?" The woman screwed up her minutely florid alabaster face and scrutinized Azula, locking eyes with her after an up and down scan. "You're from the Fire Nation, aren't you?"

"Yes, she has golden eyes," Qilaq confirmed. "You know, aside from a particularly observant little boy, you are the only person to notice that, right off the bat."

"That's because I'm 'particularly observant' and why is she dressed in your clothes?"

"Again, to shore up the 'half-sister' façade. And because her other clothes got dirty."

"'Dirty,' eh?"

The swarthy Northerner didn't acknowledge the woman's suggestive inflection. "Uh, Nuan… Oh yeah." He realized that he hadn't properly introduced his traveling companion to his old friend. "Shila, this is Nuan. We fought in the war together." Nuan's face fell for a moment before perking back up into a bright smile.

"Uh, pleased to meet you, Nuan," Azula said with a quick nod.

"Good to meet you, too, Shila." The sunny woman gave a wave and Azula noticed that her hands had small burns all over them.

"Listen, Nuan," Qilaq started. "I was wondering… We don't…"

"Have a place to stay?" the cheery girl finished for him. "Come over to my place. I've got plenty of space for the both of you," she said as she turned on a heel, beckoning the two travelers to follow.

They made their way past decrepit piles of timber leaned into rickety shacks for the most resourceful of the poorest set and a few blocks of cookie cutter buildings, all small two story affairs with dusty carpets hung on the granite porch railings and rainbow wind chimes singing in the warm summer breeze.

Boney, shirtless, little boys played in a vacant lot, knocking a firm, white ball around by Earthbending pillars of stone out of the ground and surrounding buildings. A faint whiff of rotting wood mingled with the overpowering smell of burning coal and the polluted scent of muddy, stagnant wash water.

After a while, Nuan turned to her two followers and continued walking, but backwards. "So, how's Lim?" she asked Qilaq, clasping her hand's behind her.

"Still the same," he answered with a shake of his head.

"Well, at least he's consistent. You introduce Shila to him."

"Yep."

"I'm sure that went over well."

"Well, as I mentioned, not too many people pay attention. They see clothes and assume things. In Lim's case, he was more concerned with what was under the clothes than anything else."

"Ha, I'll bet."

"Oh, she had him making steak and everything."

"Ooo. Taking him for all he's worth, eh Shila?" Nuan asked, spinning around to face her and continuing to walk, but backwards.

Azula blushed, not really knowing how to tend to the situation. Bite their heads off, maybe? No.

"But," Qilaq went on, "she pulled out a Fire Nation trinket and he went ballistic with recognition. He almost brought the house down with his anger."

"Did Qilaq tell you that story, about Lim and his...?" Nuan asked, now wearing a dimmed smile with frowning eyes.

"He mentioned it," responded the Firebender as delicately as she could.

"Yeah. It's not really his fault that he hates you. Well it is, but, what I'm saying is, don't take it personally."

"No, she took it personally, alright," Qilaq chuckled. "She knocked him clean out. Eh, he's fine now, I'm sure."

"Probably," Nuan said, turning back around and continuing to lead the way.

The three of them finally arrived in front of a drab, two story stone structure with a peaked roof and a sign hanging from the door that read, "_Yamato-Nuan Smithy: Mending and Metalbending._"Smoke was leaking from the cracks in the walls and around the front door.

"Ahw, Mat, you stupid fire flailing…" Nuan complained as she opened the door. A cloud of ashen smoke billowed out into the open air. Qilaq and Azula followed the smith in, coughing as they went.

"Honestly, I think that man gets pleasure out of breathin' in smoke," said the woman as she walked to the back of the open room. She stripped to a white tank top and green pants, throwing her long robe into the doorway to a room. She then stepped up a rickety wooden ladder to a platform that hung above the room and an empty space with coal piled in the corner. She opened a high window on the back wall and then used a long pole to open a skylight, allowing all the smoke caught in the rafters to escape.

"He did a lot of it working in the Fire Nation factories. I'm sure that's where it grew on him or in him or whatever."

When the smoke cleared, Qilaq made a remark. "Doesn't seem like plenty of space to me." Azula nodded in agreement as she looked around. It was very open, though.

Nuan hopped off the ladder and gave her rebuttal. "Loft, room, work area. Space. You could even sleep in the coal corner, if you're feeling really adventurous. Oh, yeah. Qilaq, check this out." She went over to the intensely glowing hearth and picked up one of two solid steel gloves with thick, blocky cuffs. It was completely rigid until she stuck her fingers in it. After she slipped it on completely, the metal gauntlets moved just like they were made of silk. "Metalbending. Awesome, huh? My teacher, Master Toph, taught me and some other guy. We're the only ones who can do it, besides her."

"That's wild," responded Qilaq.

"You know it is," and she punched her friend in the arm with her steel-shod fist. Qilaq grunted and smiled to mask his pain, rubbing his arm as he sat down at the thick wooden table behind him. Azula sat on the side to his left and, after putting down her gauntlet, Nuan sat across from Qilaq, the hot orange light from the hearth beaming behind her.

"You know," Qilaq started, "I've gotten pretty good at picking locks with my Waterbending."

"Really?" said Nuan.

"Yep. I'm no Metalbender, but I am certainly capable of throwing off oppressing shackles. Shila can attest to that."

"Can she? Well, since you're _so_ good now… let me see," she trailed off, disappearing under the table. "I know I've got it around here…" there was a metal click and the rattle of a chain. "…somewhereAh _Ha_!" and Nuan leapt out from beneath the table and snapped a metal cuff on Qilaq's wrist.

"Ow," was his only response, aside from a surprised twitch. Azula twitched too, right out of her chair and into a fighting stance.

Nuan just laughed, "I got you, ice man."

Qilaq tugged on the chain. The other end was clamped onto the table leg. "Yep, you got me," Qilaq said with a defeated humor. "It's alright Shila. You can sit back down." Azula was obviously apprehensive. She really thought that they were being caught for a moment, but she realized that the two of them were just playing with each other like children, big children who hadn't played in a long time.

"Let's see you pick your way out of _that_," challenged the smiling smith.

"Alright," remarked Qilaq as he threw out his arm trying to condense some water from the air. "It's really dry in here."

"It's the Earth Kingdom, in the middle of summer."

"In the middle of a smithy," Azula added. There was usually a slack tub filled with water for Nuan to cool her works and control the fire, but she hadn't filled it today.

Qilaq threw out his arm again and heard something move. There was a cup behind him with some tea in it. "Ah, there we go," he said, drawing the tea from the cup.

"Your resourcefulness never ceases to amaze me," said Azula.

"Really?"

"No," she said with a half smile.

The Waterbender took the still steaming tea and cooled it down before extending half the fluid into the keyhole. Then, he closed his eyes and held his free hand over the tea. The tips of his fingers flicked in varying sequences and at varying rhythms. After about a minute, he closed his fist and the tea froze in the lock with a flattened end protruding like a key handle. "Got it," he said quietly, turning the ice key, which promptly snapped. "Don't got it." He liquefied the ice to tea again and tried for another minute, ending with the same result. "Damn." He started over.

"We're gonna be here a while," said Nuan with a giggle.

"No, _he's_ going to be _there_ for a while," corrected Azula.

"Ha, I like you." Azula furrowed her brow and blushed at the same time. "You want something, Shila?"

She actually did want something. She had been wearing the same torn rags over her feminine attributes since Qilaq and her left on their journey. "Do you happen to have any clean underwear?" asked the young woman with a hint of embarrassment. Qilaq quirked an eyebrow, but continued his meticulous work.

"As a matter of fact, I think I do." Nuan said with a cheerful squeak in her voice. She went into a room at the back of the studio, beneath the loft. There was the sound of opening drawers and what sounded like a head sized rock hitting the floor. After a few odder, destructive sounds, Nuan came out with two plain white pairs of panties and some bras. "Now, I'm not as chesty as you, as you can plainly see, but I think our butts are just about the same size." The silent Waterbender quirked his other eyebrow, still working and failing. "What do you think Qilaq," said Nuan who turned to give him a better view of her backside.

"Trying to concentrate here," he said without looking up, but he could see everything in his peripherals.

"Oh, is my big butt distracting you?" Nuan teased, now shaking her behind at him. "Come on Azula, get over here and let's let him compare."

Azula smiled and said, "I think he knows well enough what my ass looks like."

"_Really_," said the smith woman with gleeful emphasis.

"Dammit, women!" yelled Qilaq, slamming his fist on the table. "Ladies. Charming, intelligent ladies," he recovered almost instantly, attempting to relive the ire aimed at him from both sides like lasers sights on lightning guns. "Nuan, this is a fantastic lock, and I would hate to break it in freeing myself."

"Oh, I see. I suppose you'll be wanting this key then?" she said drawing a key from her pant's pocket.

"Short of freezing my hand off, yes… please."

"I don't know. We've kinda got you at our mercy here, Shila and me." Azula smiled at the situation.

"I'll… do something… for you guys," said Qilaq almost as a question.

"Like…"

"I'll make dinner?"

"Deal," Nuan said, tossing the key to her captive.

"You know," started Azula, "You could have just lifted the table and slid the shackle off the leg to free yourself."

"Yes," responded Qilaq, "But then there's still the matter of _the manacle cuffed on my wrist_." He opened the cuff and shot a glance at the Firebender who was actually smiling. "So, Nuan," he started, standing up. "Where's the kitchen?"

"Turn around," she said gesturing.

"This is the kitchen? This is a work station."

"Hey, it's multipurpose. There're some fixin's in the cupboards."

"Got it." the press ganged chef searched through the cupboards and sifted through the non-edibles for the food. "Rice. Stock. Meat…" he sniffed it. "Bad meat. Tofu… I hope this is tofu. So broth and rice; it's a vegetarian meal. Yay."

"Yay," concurred Azula sarcastically.

Nuan handed her underwear to the needy former princess. "Hey, I don't do much shopping. That's usually Mat's thing. He owns the place and handles the business and what not. I just live and work here."

Azula went in the back and changed into her new underwear. The bra was a tight fit, but it pushed her boobs up quite a bit and made them look bigger, which wasn't all bad, she supposed. She came back out.

Qilaq and Nuan were humming while they worked. The humming turned to rising words. The former Fire Nation princess actually recognized the song. They sang "I Vow to Thee My Country," an Earth Kingdom hymn, tutti while the smith hammered away at something and the cook mixed up some water and stock. She felt out of place with the two of them, but she was comfortable. She was warm.

"Light?" he asked Azula as she passed. She jabbed and set the tinder beneath the cooking pot alight. "Thank you."

She sat down across from Nuan and nodded in approval of the undergarments. "Happy to help," said the smith with a sincere laugh. "So, Shila, is traveling with the ice man not the most exciting thing?"

"Yes. It isn't," she responded deadpanned.

"Aw, really? Qilaq, you're not fun anymore?"

"Yes," he sighed sarcastically. "Apparently, I'm super serious now. I blame her," he said, pointing to Azula. The fiery young woman, surprisingly, didn't even scowl. In fact, she just smiled. Qilaq took note. He picked up a jar of powder and sighed. "Don't you have any spices that aren't spicy?"

"Would they even be spices if they weren't?" asked the petite metalworker as she wiped her brow.

"Oh, come on, Nuan." "Ha."

"You know I can't stand spicy stuff."

"Lightweight." commented Azula.

Nuan busted out laughing. "I really like you," she reaffirmed to Azula before looking back at the busy cook. "Look, most of it's Mat's. Fire Nation peeps got a taste for hot stuff. What can you do?"

"I suppose, I'll just have to make do."

"Then do. A little spice won't kill you," she giggled. She loved rhymes and how Qilaq and her always seemed to rattle them off together, even if they weren't very good ones.

The day went flew by as one giggled almost constantly while one smiled and laughed and the third among them even let out a chuckle, here and there. They ate soup and Nuan caught them up on mundane local happenings and showed off her various projects, from cutlery to wind chimes to full coats of armor.

After a long and interesting day, Azula was ready to sleep. It wasn't quite dusk, yet, but she felt her eyelids drooping uncontrollably. Nuan offered the room to her sleepy guest and Azula gracefully accepted, and then fell on the bed, asleep before she even hit the firm mattress.

As the sun sagged on the horizon, the light in the foundry diminished. Shadows started to grow in the corners, but the open room still maintained an apricot glow. Nuan came up to Qilaq who was sitting at a small near the railing on the loft's edge. She put a cup down in front of him and sat in the chair across from her dark-brown friend.

"What's this?" he asked, drawing the cup to his lips.

"Strong." she responded simply.

"Ack. Indeed." He aired out his scorched tongue.

"What you said about Lim… he hasn't changed… hasn't improved?"

"No, he's still Lim," Qilaq said with serious smile. "I tell ya, I can't imagine the kind of pain he endures every minute of everyday."

"But you helped him, right? I mean, you basically saved his life when it happened, kept the shrapnel and agony from killing him. And you helped him recover over these past years. You've stuck with him."

"Yeah, but it's still there. I couldn't do much about it, short of ripping him apart. He still hates them with all his might. Don't we all, on some level."

"I don't."

"I'll bet you don't," smirked the Northerner.

"I don't," Nuan reiterated. "Look, we're all okay, now. No more evil Fire Lord. No more War. Everyone can just get on with it. That's what all this," she swept her hand out, gesturing to all the room, "is all about. It's progress."

"You work with a Firebender. You're building for the law and the common man. You're like the poster child for this time. You're just like your dad."

"Come on, now. Why make that comparison? You never even knew my dad."

"No, but, from what you told me about him, how he used to organize rebuilds for the decimated villages, how he used to pull whole homes out of the earth, I think, if he saw you now, helping to rebuild peoples lives and make them better, he'd be very proud."

"Probably, but I don't do it for the praise or the pride. If anything, that's what he'd be most proud of: me not caring about his or anybody else's opinion."

"Hmm, well, _I_ think you're doing great."

"Thanks. See, if you want to complement me, just complement me. You don't have to skirt around it by bringing up my dad. I'm really glad to see you Qilaq, if the leaping on you didn't give you a clue."

"Oh, I got it. Felt it, too, just like back in the day. So, what are the cuffs are for?" he said, changing the subject.

"A contract from the local law enforcement. They just got organized, here in the Lower Ring. They're really helping to bring order. That's the prototype set. Whataya think? Do you think it will meet their demands?"

"If they need to restrain anything less than a crafty platypus-bear, I think they're covered."

"Nice."

There was gentle warmth in the room. The sound of low flames in the forge and the unusually quiet of the ghetto outside made the two friends feel something neither had felt since their youth. They felt home was all around them. Qilaq put his hand on Nuan's fist and wrapped his fingers around it, gently. She clenched her fist and smiled, though a sad light reflected and trembled in her eyes. Her gaze down to the hard gray grain of the table.

"Shila," she started, then paused. "She seems familiar." Nuan met Qilaq's gaze. Gold flecks buried deep in her bright forest-green irises sparkled like iron pyrite under the full Moon light.

"I'm going out," said Qilaq as he broke the stare and rose from his chair. The man slid down rope-knit, wooden ladder and walked across to the foundry floor. Before he left, he turned to his friend, still perched in the loft. "Don't wait up," and he closed the door behind him.


	12. Reunion at the Edge of the Dark

Note to Reader: There were updates. They happened. I explained it in detail in the notes for the previous chapter.

Guest Starring: The Dragon of the West, The World's Greatest Earthbender, and some funny guy with a sword.

**Chapter 12: Reunion at the Edge of the Dark**

Pottery brimming with rainwater in the wake of a light storm reflected the squared visage and bulbous nose of a man wracked with fear and elation for what he thought to be right. His skin was a sickly yellow, bordering on green and bruises formed under his eyes. He took in the crisp sent of the stagnating water that pooled in pots and gutters.

Sidling up to the pine wall of the building, he looked around the corner of the building from his dark alley and saw Fire Nation citizens making their way through the streets. Merchants hollered, as is their way, and Firebender cast magic tricks that made flames dance like string less marionettes, while fat cheeked children laughed at the silly man and his burning puppets.

It was time for him to do his part. It was time for him to offer his body and cleanse the country of their wretchedness, or at least this street.

The ground beneath his feet ate him up to his waste in a flash. He gasped and struggled to push himself out with his free hands, but the earth opened and swallowed them, too.

A towering figure covered in black robes with a hood pulled down and a crimson scarf over his mouth loomed over the trapped, would-be terrorist.

"This wanton destruction will make no difference," said the faceless man. "Nothing will come of it."

The man up to his waist in earth gave a nervous laugh. "No difference? Nothing will come of it? Ha! You don't understand nothing about people. I know, we all know. All us who destroy the placid little sheep who follow that self-righteous prodigal son born of and marked of destruction-"

"Oh, please," interrupted the figure. "Don't be so sanctimoniously pharisaic."

"What?"

"You don't even know what all those words your dribbling mean. You couldn't even tell that what I said was nigh redundant."

"What?"

"Listen to me you viscous little pustule!" The earth jerked and swallowed him up to his chest and elbows. The Now that I have your attention, understand, that I'm not going to hurt you. Actually, all I want to know is who is disseminating all of these… orders for havoc."

The man's bulbous nose itched with fear. He didn't want the ground to suck him down anymore, which seemed to happen when the towering cloaked figure got mad. "I… I don't know him, but I know he is. Heard of him, see, from a guy."

"I see," the hooded head nodded. "Go on."

"Well… that's it. We are Kagutsuchi and, from-"

"From the ashes of your holocaust we shall rise," the cloaked one finished for the jaundiced man. "Yes, I've heard it all before. I _met_ with one of the… brothers, I suppose you'd call them."

"So you know what needs to be done?"

"Oh, I know more than your pomegranate seed brain could contain." The shrouded man brought his red wrapped face closer to the yellowing man. His eyes came into view. They were a bright green, piercing from beneath the hood cast shadows. "You won't do this." he said slowly.

"Yes, I will," argued the half buried man, innocently.

"_No_, you won't."

The ground crept up around the man's shoulders. Next it envelops his square head. "No, please," he pleaded. "I won't."

"But you are not a failure," the cloaked figure said, suddenly delicate in his speech.

"I'm not?"

"You are merely postponing your sacrifice. You're time for glory will come."

"It will?"

"Yes, just stay alive and stay loyal to the cause and soon, when the time is right, I shall send for you and all the brothers. We will gather and we will bring a glorious sheet of cleansing fire down on those who would usurp the throne and distort the once and mighty ways of the Fire Nation."

"Yes," he hissed as realization unfolded. "I will wait."

"Good. Now, be gone and remain silent or your glory will never, truly, come to pass."

The ground spat him back up and became solid beneath his feet, once again. The yellowing man wobbled, finally able to scratch his round nose and relieve the itch. "Yes. Yes. Yesssuss. Yes," he repeated to himself as he staggered off peacefully down the street.

Bai Tan remained in the shadows and lowered the blood-red obscuring his mouth to reveal a pleased smile. "I shall soon have the stage set for The Harlot's grand entrance."

* * *

"I'm telling you, 'Jazzdragontastic' is the perfect slogan for the Jasmine Dragon," argued a man, his face obscured by long locks of straight brown hair. "We could even get that new dance music in here. The tweens would love it."

"You go on home, now, Zhong. Well sleep on it and come back at this enigma fresh, tomorrow." The stout, graying man watched his publicity-minded employee walk off into the freshly born night. "Such spirit in him," he said as he turned to the back door to his shop.

"Bwah!" A blue form slid out of the shadows and nearly gave the old man a heart attack. After a scared moment, recognition dawned on his wrinkled brow. "Qilaq? Is that… It is you! Oh, how are you, my boy?" and he embraced his blue-clad friend's waist.

"Fine, Iroh," he said returning the gesture.

"Come in, please. I'll pour you some tea."

"That would be wonderful."

The back room was rather spacious, though it still had that claustrophobic construction where the walls felt two feet too close together. The ceiling was high, though. Lamplight was plentiful and the smell of dried tea leaves filled the air: grassy green, wilted white, slow drying yellow, strong and sweet crimson.

Qilaq sat at a tiny cedar table and allowed his scent to drown in the smells as Iroh brought two terracotta cups filled with oolong that was bitter then washed sweet on the Waterbender's palate.

"So, what brings you to Ba Sing Se?" he said as he flipped his hanging sleeves from his hands and picked up his teacup.

"I'm on leave," Qilaq lied.

"How's Wulong Forest coming along?"

"It's grown quite a bit." The Tree Keeper's smile was genuine. "Our work's actually done there."

"Ah, so that's why you have leave to come here."

"Yes." Qilaq thought it as good a time as any to ask for his old friend's help. "Iroh, I was…"

Footsteps echoed from the front of the shop. "Excuse me for a moment, Qilaq," said the old man as he passed through the green and yellow stripped sheet that hung in the doorway between the back room and the serving floor.

The old man stroked his long, pointy beard and walked out to the front of the shop, where he was greeted by another familiar face. "What a pleasant surprise," he said to the tall, brown-skinned man, wearing a white, sleeveless tunic, the edges hemmed with bristling azure fur, and a sheathed katana hanging from his waist. "Sokka, it's been too long."

"Good to see ya, Iroh," said the younger man in a deep, clear voice like a calm river. "How's the shop?"

"Oh, it's doing well. And how are you? Shouldn't you be home with your newborn?"

"Well, I-"

"Sokka!" the Water Tribe warrior was cut off by a childlike exclamation of glee. A short young woman, with black hair hanging down to the small of her back, leapt onto the wooden porch and embraced Sokka's waist.

"Hey, Toph. Where'd you come from?

"The shadows, oooo… I was in the neighborhood and I'd thought I'd say, 'hi,' to old Iroh." She turned to Iroh. "Hi."

"Master Toph," he said with a bow.

"Skip the formalities, Iroh."

"Whatcha been up to?" asked Sokka with a laugh.

"Oh, you know," she waved vaguely, "pickin' things, being masterful, all that good stuff. I'm teaching, now, ya know. I even have a couple students who can Metalbend."

"Impressive."

"Isn't it? And look at you…" said the blind young woman, wrapping her small hand around the warrior's huge bicep. "…all muscley with your deep, manly voice."

"Well, as you are well aware, I am all that is man," he deepened his voice as if to prove his point. The petite Toph threw a rigid punch at the stolid man's arm. "Ow," he said simply, as if all he had declared had been crushed under that arm-bruising blow. Toph giggled and pointed to the warrior's weapon.

"New sword, huh?"

"Yeah, this is actually Suki's katana. She couldn't come because of the baby. Of course, you guys know about that."

"I've read your letters," said Iroh in his pleasant way.

"I heard 'em," Toph remarked with a smile and a widening of her unblinking eyes.

"How is the baby?"

Sokka brightened at the mention of his and Suki's newborn. "He's great. He's got his moms skin and his dad's rugged good looks."

"He's only, like, one, isn't he?" queried Toph, sensing a standard Sokka exaggeration.

"Hey, it comes through." He gave a weak laugh before his tone darkened. "Anyway, she told me to use her sword to slice up the bastard that killed Ling and… Fen Rui."

"What?" said Toph with mild shock.

"Oh, my." Iroh lowered his solemn gaze.

"Yeah, some Waterbender froze them in blocks of ice. They suffocated. Ty Lee survived, but her neck was burnt pretty bad. Suki really wanted to come and avenge her friends and the honor of the Kiyoshi Warriors, but I told her to stay home."

Toph gave a tentative chuckle to help lighten the mood. "You 'told' her? And she listened to you?"

"Hey…," the warrior said, following his friends cue, "someone's got to take care of the baby. Anyway, I won't risk her life in this. This Waterbender traveling with Azula is no joke. And then there's Azula, to consider. Keep it on the down low, though. Zuko doesn't want people to panic. Apparently, he's got a crack team on their trail and now I'm on 'em, too."

"You alright, Iroh? You're a little… shaky."

Iroh felt a terrible strangling feeling in his stomach. He wasn't consciously sure what was causing it, but there was a pattern forming just beyond the edges of his thought. He looked at the Master Earthbender and spoke. "It's just distressing to hear that Azula is loose here. She is a danger to every innocent person in the Earth Kingdom."

"No kidding," agreed Toph.

"She's a danger no matter where she is," said Sokka, "but I plan on remedying that. I'm gonna make sure she can't hurt anyone ever again."

Toph could feel the tension surging through the ground as Sokka's grip tightened around handle of Suki's katana. Her eyes fell. The young Master didn't know how to feel, the mix of humor and fierce stress tugged at her heart.

"That is for the best." conferred the paunchy old man. "I wish you luck on your mission."

"Thanks, Iroh." he said with a courteous smile over his strong jaw as he stepped off the porch.

"Well, I'll do you one better than luck," said Toph boisterously, putting her fists on her hips. "I'm coming along," and she followed after her friend from the Southern Water Tribe.

"Thank _you_, Toph. I came 'cause I heard this was the direction they were headed, but I also kinda felt like I might need your help."

"Hah, when have you ever _not_ needed my help?"

"Hey, I'm capable…"

"Yeah, when you're out shopping, maybe," the little youth chided the big strong warrior.

"Oh, that's low. I can't help my diverse taste in wares."

The two started off down the shadowy street, but then Toph stopped and turned her sightless, celadon eyes back to the shop for a moment. She had felt it with her seismic sense and wondered whose heart it was she felt racing in the shop. Sokka called to her and she let it go, walking off with her friend.

Iroh stepped steadily back into the back of his tea shop and sat back down with Qilaq who wore a somber cynicism on his dark brown face. "So, 'it's for the best,' is it?"

"You don't know Azula," Iroh said grimly with a shake of his head. "You don't know what she's capable of."

"Oh, I know all too well what she's capable of," retorted Qilaq with a grin. "I've been traveling with her. I brought her here."

"What?"

"You heard me. The Failed Fire Lord, the Phoenix's Harlot, is with me.

"Wh… You're…" Iroh stuttered as he tried to recover from the shocking revelation. Through the confusion he rallied to help his old friend. "Listen to me, Qilaq. You can't handle Azula. No one can." The old man knew that Azula would stab Qilaq in the back the second the opportunity arose.

Qilaq didn't seem worried. In fact, he seemed amused. "I'm not trying to 'handle' her. If I was, it would seem I'm doing a pretty good job."

This was not a joke. Iroh's anger overtook his concern. "And by doing so, by assisting her, you are betraying your nation and you are betraying everyone who has ever worked to achieve this peace!"

"Please, don't bring my allegiances into this," Qilaq said calmly. "Those bastards are hunting her like an animal, Iroh."

"She _is_ an animal! She is a vicious monster and nothing can change that about her!"

"I don't see it." Qilaq's quick remark and calm stare shocked the old tea maker silent, but only for a moment.

"Then you time in the woods must have made you blind!"

Offense furrowed in Qilaq's brow. "Sure, she's pretty vicious at times, impulsive, but she's nothing like _us_." A hollow silence fell over both the men sitting among the myriad scents wafting up from the jars of drying tea leaves.

"Has she ever taken a life?" continued the Northerner. "Has she ever laid into a man and watched his soul spill from his flesh and the lights leave his eyes?" Iroh was silent. Qilaq answered for the old man. "No, I can see that much in her. Killing marks people and she doesn't bear that mark. Not like you and me."

Iroh couldn't argue with the man. He had never known Azula to fight most of her own battles, though she was certainly capable. She was… _is_ dangerous. "Qilaq, I'm trying to watch out for you."

"Don't trouble yourself over me. You've done enough of that."

Iroh let out a disapproving growl. "I can't stand idly by while she roams free."

"Sure you can," the Waterbender said lightly.

"No, I can't. I'll have to tell them…" Qilaq rose from his chair immediately and made his way to the door, but stopped at Iroh's next word, "…tomorrow. It's for your safety, too, Qilaq. Understand, it is for the best."

"I guess, I should thank you for that much, but I won't." His words chilled the air and choked the fluttering lamplight. "Goodbye, Iroh. Good tea," and with that Qilaq slipped out into the night.

"Good tea," the old man repeated in his gruff, steady way as the warmth returned to the backroom of his tea shop, his dream erected in four walls. "Simple. Rolls off the tongue. Like a greeting and a farewell all at once. An excellent slogan."

Iroh knew that capturing Azula would save Qilaq, in the end, but the old man feared, and perhaps knew, that he couldn't save his old friend from himself. The yellow glow in the room diminished and then vanished all together, willed away by the ancient Dragon.


	13. The Turn to Bloody Vengeance

Warning: Violence (as if you hadn't guessed from reading the title).

It's a short one, bringing a dramatic close to Act Three. Next up: Act Four.

**Chapter 13: The Turn to Bloody Vengeance**

A silver-blue glow radiated from the full Moon. Squared buildings, dusty doorsteps, cracked jars, mongrel strays, even the blackness itself, all were haloed. Some of the shadow's moved with dark purpose, committing acts too heinous for the light of the night. Still, it was quiet. It was peaceful.

All around him, Qilaq could feel the city sleeping. The slow, calm rhythm of rest made him feel easier, though he was still significantly perturbed by Iroh's scolding remarks. More people were hunting him: masters and vengeful swordsman. Now, all his focus was on getting out of the city. He could only think of one place where he knew nobody would ever come.

The beating of blood, not his own, filled his ears, his mind, and threatened to stop his confounded heart: a steady rhythm lost in a cacophonous tumult.

He reached Nuan's smithy and gently opened the heavy pine door. It creaked a little, and then the Waterbender felt something near him. He jerked around and gazed once again into the steely eyes of the man with the pleated hair.

"Bring her. Master Long Feng waits," he said curtly with his hands half curled on his stomach, his back straight.

"And he will continue to wait until I see him," responded Qilaq.

"Snatch up the girl and I shall take you."

"He's waited this long, he can wait an hour more. Anyway, I'm just making sure this is legitimate. I don't know you, so how can I be sure you're really representing Long Feng? I'm just protecting my interests here, you understand?"

The shadowy man stood silent for a while, simple thoughts tumbling in his mind. "Follow," he finally said and started off down the road to the west.

Qilaq had had enough. He was ready to end this.

He glanced through the still open doorway and saw Nuan standing in the loft with her hands draped at her sides. Her eyes glowed, piercing the darkness. He looks right through her with his own unfaltering gaze and shuts the door.

The two men tread lightly through the night and, after about a half-hour of walking, they stopped at the wall of a large building. It was a bare sandstone surface, completely smooth. Even the ground around the wall was unusually pristine.

The steely-eyed man flipped his sleeves out and jerked into a horse stance, fists closed tight. Sharp, clean lines appeared in a rectangle on the ground at the wall's edge. The man made another quick move and the shape divided into a series of smaller rectangles that sank into a staircase. An eerie green glow emanated from the hole.

Before the two men made their way down, they took a cursory glance around to see if anyone was watching. There appeared to be nobody, no silhouettes moving against the moon-washed night, so Qilaq followed the man down.

The still shadows came alive and approached in form. They had not been seen, but saw everything.

The Earthbender turned to seal the passage but, Qilaq stopped him. "Don't you dare seal me in here. If I don't have a clear exit, I might get… nervous." The man's brow twitched and then he continued to lead the way.

Qilaq noted the passage was just big enough for three people to walk down shoulder to shoulder. Glowing green gems jutted from the walls at regular intervals. The crystals were rather bright, though everything was hued a sickly green.

The end of the hall was a dead end until Qilaq's escort made another swift, stern gesture, which caused the flat stone barrier to retreat into the floor, leaving no sign it was ever there. The passage opened up into a comfortably sized, yet very plain room: four walls, a ceiling and a floor, all smooth bare rock. Only four small glowing gems illuminated the room, each sitting in a corner of the room.

The man who had brought Qilaq bowed and stepped aside, straightening his back against the wall. Then he saw him. The old, bald man sat cross-legged in the center of the space, his back to the Northern Waterbender.

"Master Long Feng," Qilaq greeted with a shallow bow.

"You haven't brought her," said the motionless man seated in the dark. "Why is that?"

"I endured great pains to get her here. I had to make sure it was really you and not just some trap, someone trying to cheat me."

"Well, as you can see this is no trap and now you're wasting my time, precious time I could be using to flay that girl's loins… slowly." Long Feng's voice was deep and raspy with atrophy, causing his words to echo with a hiss in them.

"I apologize, but she is here, in the city. Incidentally, why didn't you just have 'lackey' here capture Azula himself?" Qilaq asked tilting his head back to the silent man against the wall. "He could have saved me a trip."

"He was not to touch the Harlot because I know. I know that, even atrophied by years in prison, she is still a beast only tamed by the most razor of whips, the sternest of tamers, the coldest of hearts."

"I'm flattered, master. So, Long Feng, how _long_ has it been since you first… contracted me?"

"Years, and yet you still waste my time?"

"Fifteen years under your command, I believe? Under your will. Yes, well…"

"What is this?" sounded a feminine voice from the doorway. The three men turned and saw her, standing in her deep blue robes, the green light at her back shining around her. The man in the middle of the room stood and looked into Azula's shocked face with his wide, quivering eyes.

"Finally," Long Feng said, nearly drooling at the sight of her. "After all these years, we meet again. The Kingdom was mine for the taking, but then you… you seduced my agents. You turned them against me, their master, and then you ended my life. Oh, I will savor this. You ended my life, Princess Azula, and now, I'm going to do the same to _you_!"

Qilaq threw out his open right palm and Long Feng's body exploded from his robes, the mash of blood and flesh splattering the walls. The old man's minion move to attack, but before he could even bend his knees the Waterbender turned and threw out his left hand. The man spasmed violently and his body liquefied, splashing down into the dust and saturating his empty cloths like tomato soup poured from a bowl.

Azula couldn't… believe what had happened, any of it. She had just had soup for dinner. She suppressed her urge to vomit. There were flecks of blood on her face. It spotted her clothes. Her shocked eyes stuck on Qilaq. He walked towards her. He was clean.

"How do ya like me now, water boy?" a man screamed from the passage way. Azula turned before Qilaq grabbed her and threw her into the corner of the room. An arrow passed through the Waterbender's sleeve, narrowly missing his arm. It was Fu Li, the mercenary archer, flanked by his large partner.

Qilaq acted instantly, sweeping up the blood from around the room and streaming it through the air towards his assailant. Fu Li threaded another arrow, but was pulled to the ground by the sanguine tentacle wrapped around his ankle. As he fell, the blood started to spin. It spun so fast that the friction sliced into his flesh as it squeezed around his ankle, severing his foot.

Fu Li screamed again and rolled over to look to his friend for help. Da Tan was already running up the stairs, which promptly rose, sealing the passage. The maimed man squealed and writhed on the floor, crying out in pain and then a hand gripped the back of his shirt and pulled him up. Azula came and stood in the opening to the room, watching.

Qilaq yanked all the arrows out of the archer's quiver and threw them away. Fu Li worked through the immense pain and pulled the dagger from behind his back. He slashed at the Waterbender who jumped back only receiving a shallow cut across his jaw. He kicked Fu Li's bloody stump, causing the mercenary to drop the knife and clutch at his wound with a whiny moan.

The Waterbender picked up the knife, stabbed into the screaming man's back and twisted the blade before pulling it out again. Shock set in and Fu Li's body started shutting out the pain. His senses were numbing, though he could still feel his warm blood pouring out of his back.

"Azula, come here," he called into the dark room. Then he bent the blood on the floor of the room and passage around his victim and froze it up to the man's shoulders. Qilaq just stood there and glared at the man. Azula swallowed. One of the strewn arrows creaking under her foot as she walked over to Qilaq's side.

"I…" Fu Li tried to speak. "I was just doing my job."

"You seem to enjoy you're work," said Qilaq with a slight laugh.

"Well, yeah, but… I was just following or… orders," the former Yu Yan Archer said, fighting through the numbing that had supplanted his excruciating pain.

Qilaq kneeled down to eye level with Fu Li and asked, deadly serious, "You know, I doubt you have the mind to answer this, what with the derangement and the hemorrhaging, but tell me, has anything good ever come out of 'just following orders?'"

"Uh…" The man could barely think. His skin bleached whiter by the second.

"Yeah, I didn't think so. Kill him, Azula," Qilaq said, stepping back. Azula just continued to stare at the dying man.

"Mercy, maybe?" Fu Li proposed groggily as the blood continued to pool in his frozen encasement.

"Mercy?" laughed Qilaq with a tinge of sadistic pleasure. "Sorry, but we left our mercy amongst the trees." He turned to back to Azula who was racked with a torrent of clashing emotions. Horror. Fear. Pity. Something. A golden-eyed malice. "Leash your fury, now. _Take revenge_." She stood, still staring down at the trapped man. "He hunted you like a dog. He was going to ravage you!"

"He killed the only friends I had left in the world," she whispered.

"What? The… the traitor Dirtbastards?" Fu Li faltered.

Azula's face contorted as ardent anger overtook her. She cocked her fist back and punched a stream of red-orange flames that poured into the man's eyes and mouth and broiled his flesh. He wailed in agony. The fire soon engulfed the entire body, melting the frozen blood that had been holding it up and letting it crumble to the ground. The Firebender stuck out her sharply pointed chin and looked down at what she had done. The burning body was still now, charred, all the blood boiling and caramelizing, filling the air with the sharp scent of iron and heavy smoke.

No words were spoken. After a motionless few seconds in the green glow of the underground hallway, Qilaq grabbed up the stained knife and walked over to the sealed entrance. It was just a wall now, but they weren't that far beneath the surface. He pulled together what little blood he could from the floor and pressured it fast against the wall. It slowly seeped into the rock. Freezing it within the stone, then melting it again, he hoped to loosen it enough to dig through. He stabbed the earth with the knife, but it was still to hard, too unyielding to break through. He cursed and slammed his fist against the wall. He'd need more liquid to get out.

After a moment, he realized that there was water near him. Water in metal, in leaky rusted pipes, was sloshing about, trapped somewhere, embedded in the earth. All his will was set to move that water. Let it leak. Leak. Leak. Slowly, through the corroded cracks and the poorly set foundation, he pulled the water from the left wall of the passage and streamed it into the barrier between him and freedom from this bloody tomb.

He froze it and melted it, froze it and melted it, until the rock fell apart and crumbled away enough for him to dig a small hole back to the surface. Emerging from the cavity he gasped in the fresh air and pulled the rest of his body through, loving the soft light of the comfortably cool night.

Azula finally moved from the dead pyre stood and, dazed, frantically slithered out of the underground passage like a viper from her hollow den. Qilaq just stood silent in the empty street with his back to the hole. After she took a few steps away from the hole, Azula's knees gave out. She caught her self with her hands and tried desperately to hold it in. It was no good. She puked sour, yellow vomit all over her hands.

"You…" she gasped as she choked and gasped. "You where going to-"

"Obviously I didn't, though!" Qilaq said with his back still turned on the prostrate Azula.

"The noble knight, indeed," she spat. "Just doing the right thing, huh? Just rescuing the princess from some bad men?" she belched.

"Long Feng had been tugging at my strings for years. I figured I'd end that." His last words were colored with what sounded like amusement.

"I was right to be wary of you."

"And yet here you are, safe." He turned and faced her. "I killed a man who's had it in for you for years, a man that very likely would have caught you and done agonizing things to you over vast tracts of time. Believe me, I knew the guy and I knew no bottom to his madness or his malice." Azula was confused. Where was this voice coming from? It didn't sound like the Qilaq she had gotten to know over the past week. This wasn't him.

Something moved behind Qilaq. Azula gasped to warn him but he was already turning. In the instant he brought his arm around, a stream of bloody water flew out of the hole in the ground, and froze into a blade. A steel hand caught the razor edged ice and stopped it dead.

"Nuan…" Qilaq gasped, relaxing.

The Metalbender released the sword of blood and water from the grip of her left steel gauntlet. "Glad I came prepared." she said with a weak smile. She saw the blood. She could guess at whose it was, but she knew what had become of them. She hated what the full Moon did to people.

"I'm sorry," the Bloodbender said, charming the sanguineous fluid back into the hole from whence it came. "Did you see a man?" he asked, suddenly animated. "There was a tall, burly man with a bald head."

"I didn't see anyone."

"Ahhg! Drown the Moon! He's going to keep hunting us." He yanked at his short dreadlocks in frustration.

"You're in some stuff, Qilaq," Nuan stated, reflexively trying to lighten the mood.

"Very astute," snapped her friend. The Metalbender frowned. "Ahhg, I'm sorry, Nuan," Qilaq said as he walked over and gently put his hands on her shoulders. "We have to go. We have to get away from this 'stuff.'" Qilaq managed a weak laugh for his friend, though she didn't brighten any.

"Qilaq," Nuan started, "you remember when we got into that fight. You know the one I'm talking about: during the resistance, here in Ba Sing Se."

He was confused why she was bringing this up now, but he answered straight, releasing her arms. "It came to blows, I remember."

"Right, but then, I just let you knock me on my butt."

"Yep."

"You remember what I said? 'Sometimes the only way to stop fighting is to stop fighting.'"

"How childishly pragmatic of you," he smiled.

"Just think about it."

"This guy is hunting us and so is your master, from what I've heard. We've got to go."

"Qilaq, the wars over. You can…"

"This has nothing to do with the war." The man whipped his coffee colored face and let out a long sigh. He could almost see what she was getting at but… "This is about our safety. All of our safeties. And anyway, the war's not over for all of us, Nuan. Stay safe."

"I will," she said. She didn't need to tell Qilaq to "stay safe" because she knew he would and she didn't waste words, even during goodbyes: even when she feared she may never get another chance to waste those words.

Qilaq walked over to Azula who was still on her hands and knees with her face in the dirt next to her puddle of half-digested soup. "I assume you're still coming along," he conjectured at the Firebender.

Azula let out a laugh to relieve the stress that was strangling her every fiber. "What choice do I have?"

"You could stay here and get caught."

"That's not a choice." She stood and wiped the water from her eyes and the scum from her lips.

Nuan watched as the two transient fugitives disappeared into the shadows beyond the silver-blue haze of moonlight.

When they were gone she turned her attention to the hole near the side of the building. She could guess at the horrifying things down there. She fought along side Qilaq, after all. With a breath, she reached her will down deep into the earth and raised the floor of the subsurface room to its ceiling, burying the void and all its contents as though it had never been.


	14. And Once More

Note to Reader: So, I've trimmed some of the fat in the narrative. That whole business with Qilaq Earthbending is out the window. I also pushed the timeline up a week, so I don't have to explain immaculate Bloodbending. I could, but it's not worth the grief, so instead of Earthbending I gave him a shovel and the Moon is full in the previous three chapters. Sorry if that throws you, but this is a work in progress, so just roll with it.

I changed the title, too, to something more striking and appropriate.

It's funny how a few altered words can affect the whole of a story. I would suggest rereading chapters eleven and thirteen again. Some of those details really set it off.

Extra special thanks to OmniSchreiber for keeping me honest. After all, Truth in writing is all we have.

**Chapter 14: And Once More**

The trees. Dark auburn pillars dressed in green frills. The dawn. Bright golden rays lanced through the leaves and onto them as they trudged through the dirt and mud and decaying mulch. The Sun. The one. The rising power of all Firebending. Azula remembered it was the Sun that gave Firebender's their power. Her strength. That's what she was taught. The breath. The energy that enters and lights and blazes within and reaches past your limbs to burn your enemies. Red-orange flames poured into the man's eyes and mouth and broiled his flesh. The man wailed… Azula, snapped from her stunned daze, wailed as she rushed Qilaq, who turned. She snatched up his robes and pinned his back against the craggy bark of a pine tree.

"Why!" she demanded, tightening her grip. "Why did you make me kill him?"

"Take your hands off me, woman," Qilaq quietly commanded.

"Tell me why, _now_, you fucking bastard!"

"Hand's off or I will freeze them off!" he yelled, grabbing her wrists. His icy grip stung like frozen needles stabbing into her skin and she let go. "You wanted revenge, right?" he asked, pushing her away. "Well, there you go. You got it. I set it up for you. Don't you feel better, now? I don't understand why you're so angry."

"Because you made me kill a man!"

"I didn't _make_ you kill anyone! You did it!" His roar silenced the woods. "You could have said 'no,' though I can't fathom why you're so broken up about killing someone who planned on imprisoning you and collecting on it."

"I've never… Oh, right, your one to talk. You were going t-"

"I wasn't! I certainly thought about it. Long Feng would have paid a fortune for you, though I doubt he had that much, seeing as how you ruined him."

"You're pathetic," Azula spit. Qilaq's eye twitched, but made no other move. "You worked for that… that-"

"Madman? Yeah. My commanding officer, my 'handler,' for ten years. We all obeyed him: Me, Nuan, Lim and An…" Qilaq stopped abruptly.

Azula was heaving air in and out of her breast while Qilaq calmed himself in one deep breath. He looked into her eyes as though he was about to express something profoundly sincere and illuminate the darkness that cloaked his life, his history, but he just turned and stormed off into the woods.

He was almost out of sight before Azula started after him. She would know more about this.

* * *

"Why are we here, Iroh? I thought you said they were leaving Ba Sing Se," Sokka said as Iroh led him and Toph through a Lower Ring ghetto strewed with one wheeled carts and craggy potholes.

"We're here to talk with a friend of his. I can't be sure, but, if he tried to contact anyone aside from myself, it would be her. She may know where Qilaq took Azula.

"I still can't believe you just let him go, let both of them go. Why didn't you stop him?"

Iroh let his reasons echo like voices in the dark cave of his mind. The voice that had gotten the better of his judgment rang out over all the others: Qilaq was once his friend. More than that, even. He felt responsible for the boy and he couldn't bring himself to harm him. He also couldn't stand the prospect of him getting stabbed in the back.

A part of Iroh couldn't believe that the Waterbending boy, who he had helped and harmed so deeply in the War, was helping Azula. There was even a compassionate whisper that implored Iroh to forgive his niece. She may be a different person, now. People can change. He was proof of that, but he remembered of Azula were lies and deceit. She was likely playing him, using Qilaq to elude capture. Yes, that was it. That must be it.

There was still one more reason, more practical than the rest. "It would have made no difference," he said aloud.

"No difference? You're the Dragon of the West."

"I'm old now, Sokka and, while the years have calmed my spirit, I could see that Qilaq has lost none of his… decisiveness. He is too cold, now. He used to be such a good boy."

"Whatever. He sucks, now. It's too bad I didn't bring Katara along. She's a Waterbending master. She could've put him in his place."

"Perhaps," Iroh said quietly. Qilaq wasn't a monster, no more than he was. Qilaq didn't deserve any of this and Iroh didn't want him to die.

They approached Nuan's smithy and knocked on the heavy wood door.

* * *

After hurdling fallen trees and wading through knee-high greenery for a long stretch of time, Azula had calmed down. Why did she feel so guilty? What was it? She was Azula: Former Princess of the Fire Nation. She was greater than all those peons that scrambled beneath her in their pitiful, meaningless toil. Mere peasants, all like the dust that gathered on her shoes and just as easily brushed aside.

And yet, being among them, posing as one of them, acting as one of them, she felt a sense of… sympathy for their plight, now. She had endured the suffering of prison. Life outside seemed sweet, her regal authority became nearly impossible for her to assert in her own mind, much less her manner. All she could manage was venomous retorts, but she had very little fire to back it up.

The question screamed in her again: why did Qilaq make her… prompt her to kill that man? She suggested it. She planned to extinguish the threat of recapture, but she never envisioned something like that. What's more, looping the event in her mind, trying to distance herself from it, make it seem more like fantasy, she came to a realization. There was that feeling again. That malicious feeling. The airy whisper of a blunt voice that had once dulled her to the weakness of pity. She hadn't felt that in so long.

Pity had become her. Self-pity consumed her in prison for the first year, she remembered as it was all she ate and drank and breathed. But after a year, it was gone and she was hollow for a time. She was hollow and then she was filled with… it stood in her sideways, a body like it wasn't there and…

Azula looked up and saw Qilaq, his palm placed on the furry brown bark of a tree. "I didn't think you'd actually do it," he said.

The young woman screwed up her face, furious and a little baffled. "Really? Screaming at me to kill him, to 'take revenge.' What did you think I was going to do?"

"I thought you'd tell me off, tell me to 'get bent' or at least do nothing. I guess I don't really know you."

"Well that makes two of us," scoffed Azula.

"Look, I'm sorry. It was me. I killed him. Like I said, I cut one of his arteries open. He was on his way out before you even got near him."

A tiny wave of relief lapped against the shores of her consciousness, but she wasn't going let it wash over her. She couldn't. Her pride wouldn't let her. "Don't patronize me. He may have been dying, but I delivered the final blow." And it made her feel wretched and alive and she was afraid, not because her invigoration felt wrong, but because it felt right.

"Honestly, I wanted to teach you a little something about revenge, but it looks like it… ha, backfired."

"How cute. And since when are you 'honest?'"

Qilaq didn't respond. He just looked up into the splayed branches above his head, light trying to get through them down on the ground. "How can you just take it like that?"

"What, killing? Azula, I was a soldier. I've killed so many people in so many ways, I'm numb to it, now, and sometimes I forget how it affects people." They started to walk again. "It's something I've tried very hard to avoid since the War ended. You can't just go around liquefying people in civilized society, which is fine by me, but I'm not about to go non-violent and risk my hide. They all just make it so easy."

"And your friends? Is it easy for them, too?"

"I don't think so," he said as they both ducked a branch. "They were good at it too, no question. Otherwise, they wouldn't be alive today. But, I think it was hard for them up to the very end, though Lim could probably stand to kill of few more Fire Nation citizens. I really don't know, though. I can't speak for them. Just myself."

* * *

"Who is…? Master Toph!" Nuan exclaimed when she opened her door to the three unexpected guests. "Why are you here? I mean, what can I do for you?"

"We've come by to ask you something," Toph said as she twisted her pinky in her ear.

"Sure, come on in." She welcomed them in and went back to her workstation where she was engraving a design into a plate of metal. It was all she could do to keep from having to look at her three guests. She knew that they were there for information on Qilaq and his friend. The fact that she knew that information shone through her gold-flecked-green eyes.

"I'll get right to it, then," started old man Iroh, carefully lowering his backside into a chair that creaked under his weight. "Qilaq came and saw me last night. I was wondering if he visited you, as well."

"Qilaq? No." Nuan did her best to sound both surprised and sincere, though she wasn't a very good liar, so it came out a little overly peppy, even for her. "Isn't he still over planting in Wulong? I mean, it would be great to see him, but he's probably just so busy."

Toph lowered her head and twisted her naked foot against the dusty stone floor. "I hate to pull this on you of all people, Nuan, but I can feel your tension through the ground. I know you're lying."

"I… No… No, I'm not," stuttered the smith, gripping the sheet metal in her hand like a sheet of paper. She couldn't meet the interrogating looks burning into her back.

"And again," said Toph. The artisan dropped her cold chisel, which rolled off the table and clattered on the floor.

"Nuan, it is imperative that you tell us where he went."

"I don't know," she said firmly, turning to face them. "He just came by with his girlfriend and said 'hi.' I don't know where he went."

"And again," repeated Toph.

"Why do you keep lying to us?" bellowed Sokka who stood in front of the hearth. "Why are you trying to protect him?"

"Look, I don't know who _you _are, but let's get one thing straight: Qilaq's my best friend and he says you're hunting him. I don't know why, but…"

"He's traveling with the Phoenix's Harlot."

"What?" she gasped.

Iroh clarified Sokka's shocking statement. "He travels with the escaped former princess of the Fire Nation: Azula."

"She…" Nuan called up an image of the sharp-featured brunette in her memory. Her head ached and her skin crawled. "That was Azula? She was in my house?"

"Yes. Nuan, you must tell us where they went."

"And no more lies." added Sokka. Nuan shot a dark look at the foreigner.

"I… I d-don't remember," she stuttered. "He probably went to where we hid during the occupation of Ba Sing Se. I don't remember how to get there, though."

"Please stop lying, Nuan," implored Toph. "You aren't very good at it."

"If you know where they're going, then tell us!" commanded Sokka.

"Nuan, it is for his own good that we find him," said Iroh steadily.

"'Own good?' What, you think I'm stupid? You're going to try and kill him."

"Please, Nuan, we just want to help him."

"You!" she exclaimed, pointing to the butch Water Tribe warrior across the room. "Do you plan on killing Qilaq?"

"He killed some of my friends. I don't see why he shouldn't suffer the same fate."

"Well, I have an issue with that."

"He is helping Azula, the Phoenix's Harlot. Does that mean anything to you?"

"I… it…," Nuan couldn't decide on what to say. Qilaq, her best friend was helping the Phoenix's Harlot. She was visibly conflicted. She'd torn the steel she had so carefully decorated like an oak leaf. No tears came to her eyes but she made a sound like a moaning cough, a sob like that of a struck dog. "Why?" was all she could manage.

"We don't know," said Iroh. He stepped over to her and placed his wrinkled, stubby-fingered hands on Nuan's tense shoulders. "Please, Nuan. You have to tell them where Qilaq went with Azula. For his own sake."

Nuan looked up into Iroh's compassionate, compelling visage. She didn't know what was right, but she had to do something. She had to do something, as the old man said, for Qilaq's sake.

* * *

They walked for days. Qilaq gathered wild edibles and drown rabbits with morning dew from the grasses and leaves. Azula kindled fires to cook the rabbits, though she was curious as to why the dead animals didn't have a scratch on them. After a while, she figured it out. They didn't speak much to each other. They were too wrapped up in their own thoughts to project anything more than the basic functions of life. Qilaq slept deep, but Azula barely slept at all.

During the afternoon of the fifth day, when the Sun was its brightest but still heavily obscured by the black green canopy above, they came to a rest at a shallow pool with a tiny stream falling into it from a high rock face. The pool narrowed into a creek further down the way. The low static hum of flowing water against the music of the forest was soothing and the two tired travelers, rank with sweat and aches, basked in the symphony. Qilaq did, at least.

Azula was entranced by the plinking din of the stream falling into the pool, water into water, constant, redundant. It stirred the silt, the mud. A question stirred in her.

"How did you do it?" she asked. "What did you do to those men, Long Feng and the other?"

Qilaq hunched forward from his recumbent position on the bank of the pool. He considered her question for a moment, then, for once, he gave her a straight answer. "There is a taboo among Waterbenders. It's called Bloodbending, but it's really the manipulation of the myriad fluids that make up the human body. I used it on Nobu that night, though what you saw in Ba Sing Se can only be done during the full Moon. I never really understood why. The moon is never gone, even when it's fully waned away or sleeping during the day, but that's the way it is. Can't argue with nature." He stood and waved his hand over the rippling pool, charming the water, which slowly roiled and bulged, rising up into the air.

"One's will exerted over another's body." The rising liquid from the pond started to split. Two arms. The top bulged into a round form atop a narrower column. The low trunk of the form split in two. "We are all fundamentally water, so power over water is power over the body." The shifting fluid settled on the form's surface. Contours became defined and the whole form came into focus. It was a body. A human body or at least it looked like one. "Many regard Firebending to be the most dangerous, most fearsome, most violent of the four disciplines. They are wrong."

"Living, breathing pools," he said as the top of the form bubbled out into tiny little tendrils that hung down. A face formed. It was smiling.

It was Qilaq. "We're all just walking water." And the Waterbender splayed his fingers and the form splashed away, soaking the opposite bank. Azula flinched.

"Where there is life, there is water and, by that extension, so long as you have an enemy, you have something to fight with."

Azula rallied herself from the dramatic presentation. "The way you said that sounded idiotic," she chided with a fright in her voice.

"So long as you have someone to fight with, you have, at your disposal, a weapon with which to fight." Qilaq rephrased. "How's that?"

"Better." Azula stood and the two of them moved on. When the sound of water dribbling into water had all but disappeared, Azula mustered the gumption (or perhaps stupidity) to speak her mind. "So, you Waterbender's really _are_ savages."

Qilaq staggered as he slipped on a pile of shifty twigs and dirt. He turned to Azula with a blank look that seemed to want to become a scowl. It became a smile, but not his usual happy smile. It was a wicked, tilted look that seemed to warp and grow with her unease.

"You are right, Azula," he said evenly. "We are very savage. There are a lot of us out there, too. Just because it's taboo doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It's just so easy." Something roused in Azula, a fearful intrigue like nothing she had ever felt. If it was so easy, then… there it was again. A shade, a hiss in her thought that had died away during her long years of imprisonment returned. It was soft as it sidled and slithered around her consciousness.

They walked on, the three of them.


	15. Asylum Falls

Edit 2/15/10: Sorry about the false update email for you subscribers. I'm trying to fix some font effect issues. Please bear with me.

**Chapter 15: Asylum Falls**

After a few more days of marching through the seemingly endless forest, Azula had settled into her old, caustic self, more or less. The horror of Ba Sing Se was still in her mind, but she had become numb to the shock of it by the repetitive recollection of blood stained walls and exploding men and burning fluids under her nose.

Now she was just tired and sore, tired of walking through mud and dirt and dead plants, tired of the endless umbrella of trees that blotted out the sky, and really starting to wonder where they were going. "If I may be so bold, oh fearless leader," she said to with exhausted levity as they trudged up another steep hillside.

Qilaq's ears perked up. "You may," he said with a laugh. He was actually happy to hear her give him a hard time again.

"Where are we going?" she finished between breaths.

"Over this hill."

"Obviously, smartass, but to what end?"

"You'll see when we crest this hill… I think. It's a little stale in my memory, so I'm not sure if this is the hill or if there are a couple more after it."

"We must have been over a dozen hills and crossed a dozen valleys. Qilaq, where are we going?" As she finished angrily whining, they came to the peak of the hill. A golden-white wall of light blinded Azula between two tall trees. For a moment, the world was blank and then she saw it.

Green mountains carved against a periwinkle sky, distant and unmoving. Below, holts atop hills and stout yellow-green grass, the turf blanketing the valley floor, though Water spilled over a precipice in a white torrent and crashed into a lake like expanse that narrowed into a steady river which cut a softly curved path between shores of smooth, gray rocks. The sent of wet lettuce and ruff soil rose to meet them. Whistling birdsong was sharp against the distant crash of the waterfall and the constant breathy sigh of the flowing river.

The two fugitives forgot their aches and pursuers and evil deeds while the pristine tranquility of the scene overtook their senses.

Qilaq spoke. "When Ba Sing Se was taken, Nuan, Lim, and me escaped to this river valley." He glanced over at Azula who shifted under his gaze. The Dai Li betrayed their leader, Long Feng, for her. The princess was the one who committed the coup. Did Qilaq know that? "Yes, Azula," he said, answering her unspoken question. "I know you were the one who organized the coup and, if I still felt any animosity, you wouldn't have made it out of those woods. No, I expected that kind of treachery from the vicious Fire Nation princess."

Relief welled up in Azula and relaxed her lungs. She wasn't too surprised, though. He'd taken her this far and known all this time, so it obviously wasn't an issue with him.

"What surprised and angered me more," he continued, "were my colleagues, the Dai Li."

"Wait, you couldn't have been a part of the Dai Li. You're not an Earthbender. You're not even from the Earth Kingdom."

"I was an Extra National Operative, though I didn't do anything that special. It was more of an honorary title, just a way for Long Feng to keep me under his thumb. Me and everyone else."

"So, Nuan and Lim were Dai Li agents?" asked Azula, relived that the subject had been shifted off of her malicious past, but it led her to wonder: were Nuan or Lim one of those cloaked, regimented warriors she had inspired to follow her in taking down the Earth Kingdom.

"After we left the front, we were a part of the 'Cultural Ministry' for a time, yes. But it was more like leave for us, so we didn't actively participate in any internal affairs. I didn't, at least. I don't know about Nuan and Lim. They certainly fought like Dai Li agents." Qilaq recalled how the two Earthbenders would plunge their pointed hands into the ground up to their elbows and pull out gauntlets of fragmented stone and hardened terra-cotta dirt. Those were formidable weapons.

"We were safe here, but - I forget which one of us got all noble and conscientious. Probably Lim. - we ended up sneaking back into the city and helping out the underground resistance. That was probably the hardest part of the War. We did some truly horrific things during that time."

"'Truly horrific?'"

"We were the 'bad guys' then. We were the rebellion and so we had to do some less than ethical things to grief the Fire Nation occupancy. Nuan was defiantly not cool with that, but, like the good soldier, she followed her orders, most of them Long Feng's, some of them mine. Then The Order of the White Lotus came and freed the city. That was the end of the war. Fast forward a couple years and we're back. Well, I'm back… with you. Nobody's going to find us in here."

"What about Nuan? She knows about this place and she probably knows that you'd come here."

"Nuan won't sell us out."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because I know Nuan."

"Know her. You don't even know if she was with the Dai Li or not. You don't really know her."

"Hey!" he barked and raised his hand slightly as if to strike Azula. She flinched slightly but drew herself back up into a challenging posture. Qilaq pointed his finger at the fearless looking Firebender. "I've been friends with her for a long time. I've saved her from demons, _literal_ demons, and she's saved my naked backside a number of times as well. I've been through things with her that would cause you to vomit your throat inside-out with disgust. The point is I know Nuan. She won't betray us."

* * *

As the two blue-clad fugitives exchanged spirited words, elsewhere, Nuan navigated the woods with Sokka and Toph following close behind. The forest was too dense for Sokka to ride his eel-hound, so it was taking far longer than he would have liked. He would have rather overtaken Azula and the Waterbender on their way to the river valley, rather than face them after they've gotten entrenched and familiar with their terrain. He was also apprehensive about fighting a Waterbender near a river and a waterfall. And then there was Azula to consider.

The deeper he got into this hunt, the more he wished he had brought his sister along. At least he had Toph, the self-proclaimed "Greatest Earthbender in the World." As far as he was concerned, it was true.

Toph was also a little troubled, but not because of Azula or the Waterbender. She could take 'em both by herself. What worried her was her pupil and what they had forced her into. As they moved through the thick brush, their clothes catching on protruding twigs, the petite master Earthbender decided to talk to Nuan and give her sympathy and comfort.

"Nuan, look, I know this is hard for you, but-"

"Do you, master Toph!" the woman snapped, turning around. She swatted at the branch tips that scratched at her bare arms. "Helping hunt down one of my closest friends who's gone off screwing with the monster that basically enslaved my childhood home for her nation. You know that's hard for me, huh?"

"Hey, back off," commanded Sokka, stepping between his frowning friend and the livid Nuan.

"And you! You can just shut it. I'm taking you to where Qilaq probably is, though I can't be sure that he's there. He could be somewhere else."

"You said it was the most likely place they'd run away to."

"Yeah, and if they are there, you remember our deal and you make good on it."

Sokka growled. "Yes, we won't attack until you've had a chance to talk with your friend."

"That's right."

"But if…"

"No 'buts' involved!" she said swiping her steel gloved hand through the air, snapping some of the surrounding suckers that crowded her. "I'll talk to him, I'll even fight him. Ha, and if that Fire Nation… bitch gets in my way, I'll kill her for you." The swear felt bitter in Nuan's mouth but it was satisfying. "How's that? Wouldn't that be great for you guys? Everybody would be happy. You'd have your dead Harlot and I'd have my friend back."

Toph gave Sokka a gentle push out of the way so that she could face her pupil. She couldn't see Nuan, but it didn't matter. It was the blind principle of the thing. "We aren't going to kill anyone," said Toph as serious as an earthquake. Nuan pulled her head back with a bewildered look. Sokka was set to disagree, but Toph continued. "Right, Sokka? We aren't here to kill. We're just here to catch Azula and this guy so you can take Azula back to her Fire Nation prison and we can slap some sense into this Waterbender she's got wrapped around her finger."

"Qilaq. He has a name," Nuan said, much calmer after hearing her master's reasonable intentions.

"Qilaq. Right," Toph nodded with a smile.

Sokka tightened his grip on the handle of his wife's katana. The two of them had friends to avenge. "Toph I-"

"This isn't a discussion, Sokka. I'm sorry about Ling and Fen Rui and the Kiyoshi Warriors' honor, but this is someone's life were talking about here and there's nothing honorable about killing."

"This guy doesn't seem to care, honor or not. I'm not about to risk my life or your life or even Nuan's life just so that undeserving murderer can keep his."

"We aren't at risk, Sokka," Toph said with a grin. "You've got 'The Toph' on your side. When we find 'em, everything's gonna be alright."

* * *

Qilaq cautiously approached a cave near where the reservoir at the base of the falls narrowed into a proper river. Azula wondered why he was so careful in his approach. It was a shallow cave with a trickle of water running down the right wall, looking in. Other than that, it was vacant.

The swarthy Northerner sighed with what sounded like relief. "We'll wait out here until the heat on us dies down. I would have rather hid in the city where the living is easy, but I didn't think Iroh would betray us like he did."

"What? To who?" asked Azula.

"I don't know. I heard Iroh talking with them, but I didn't get a look at their faces. Toph and… Sokka were their names."

Azula vaguely remembered those names. Yes, those were two of the people who accompanied the Avatar. She remembered fighting them on the Day of Black Sun, back in the Fire Nation Royal Bunker. They didn't worry her anymore than the other men who were tacking her, but it was still added stress on her already tense body and mind.

"Don't let it worry you, though. Like I said, we're safe here."

She hated having to take Qilaq's word as a comfort. She had very little trust for anyone, let alone him, but she would take any peace of mind she could at this point. "How long will we have to wait?" she asked.

"Don't know. A long while, probably. Don't let it get to you though. All should be fine. I'm going to have a look around. Sit by the river and I'll be back in a bit," and with that, Qilaq disappeared around a boulder.

So, by the rocky riverside, Azula sat. The water was calm and clear. An opalescent fish circled in front of her, chasing its tail then giving up and swimming on. The sun shone its glistening reflection on the ever flowing surface. There was her reflection, rippling. She reflected on what she had done, become. She reflected on herself.

"Why am I getting so bent out of shape?"

"What? Whose voice is that? Where are you?"

"Why such stupid questions? Don't I recognize my own voice? Of course I do. Silly me. It is I. Myself."

"Then how come you're speaking to me. How can you be speaking to me if you're me?"

"Easier than speaking to him,"

Qilaq, Blue, Cold, Swarthy, Deep, Unknown,

"or her,"

Nuan, White, Burnt, Shrill, Jolly, Generous,

"or even her,"

Ursa, Red, Thin, Graceful, Sad, Warm.

"I can always talk to myself because I am always there. I'm reliable and I know myself better than anyone. To hear them talk of the me they know… that is a false Azula. Only I am myself. And I must assert myself. I have a place in this world. That place is on the Fire Nation throne."

"I can't go back. I must be crazy."

"Well, maybe a little."

"Shut up!"

"I can't. It's,"

Zuko, Red, Timid, Scarred, Idiotic, Weak.

"He's where I should be. I can't have that."

"This is… insane."

"No it isn't. I've been thinking this the whole time. I've always coveted vengeance, seeing the lights in dear brother's, dear Zuzu's eyes burn out and then taking my position as supreme ruler over my nation, my home.

"So, where've you been all this time? You've been awfully silent."

"I am always where I am, never lost. Wherever I am, there I am, but silence… As to that, I just couldn't handle it. I couldn't handle the self-deprecation, the self-doubt, years in prison, roasting in the heat of my failure. I was beaten and then made to be something I wasn't: static, still, complacent. None of those things are me. I am an ardent flame and being static, still and complacent in that cell caused me to suppress who I was to protect, wall off my sanity. My doubt in myself turned me to change my perspective, to be who I wasn't, to pity and feel for pitiful things, pitiful people. I couldn't help but do that to keep myself from killing myself. Had I the power, I would have stopped my heart rather than rot, so I silenced myself and waited."

"Thank my soul and sanity for that man,"

Qilaq, Blue, Cold, Swarthy, Deep, Unknown,

"Thank that man for my soul and sanity."

"Ahhg, you are crazy."

"Like I said, I am a little, but then, who isn't? Now I have it. I can gain the power to regain my position. I can humble myself once more and learn from this man,"

Qilaq, Blue, Cold, Swarthy, Deep, Unknown,

"learn how to turn my brother's,"

Zuko, Red, Timid, Scarred, Idiotic, Weak

"power against him."

"Redirecting Lightning?

"Yes, I can do that. Perhaps even more. With that power, I will trump his defense. Even if he throws my lightning back at me, I'll just throw it back at him again. He can't win against me. Nobody can."

"You can't possibly believe that,"

Qilaq, Blue, Cold, Swarthy, Deep, Unknown,

"would teach me that."

"He is savage. I said it myself right to his dirty complexion. I will learn from him. He will teach me. I may even be able to use him. He is quite powerful. He reminds me of myself, but I can use that. He gave me back my true self."

"Thank that man for my soul and sanity."

"I don't have to listen to you, to any of this, so I won't."

"I am going to listen to this. How can I not? It's me. I'm the only person I can ever really listen to. I have to listen to myself or tip into oblivion. Be careful, or the rising water will drown me," and then she cackled at herself like a carrion bird talon-deep in a fresh corpse.

The edge of the river lapped against her outstretched hand and she awoke on the rocky riverbank.

"You usually talk in your sleep?" asked Qilaq as he walked out from behind the same smoothed boulder he had disappeared behind earlier.

Azula rubbed her eyes. "I don't know. It's hard to know if you're talking in your sleep when you're asleep."

"Indeed, Miss Wit."

The Firebender stood and faced the man. He had that same opalescent fish that she had dreamed about or seen. She must have seen it, because there it was, hanging dead and gutted on Qilaq's hooked, bloodied fingers.

"Since we have nothing but time, now," she said, "I want you to teach me how to redirect lightning."

"Ah, that's… dangerous," the fish slayer said with a confused apprehension.

"Do I look afraid to you?"

"What you look like and what you _are_ never truly match up."

"Spare me your… prosaic aphorisms and just teach me the technique!"

"Alright, alright," he gave in. "We've got nothing better to do, I suppose. Anything to keep us occupied, but you're going to have to work on the basics before we get to what you want to learn."

"Basics?" she scoffed. "I don't want to be a Waterbender. I just want to redirect lightning."

"Well, there's more to it than me just showing you some movements and you skipping off into a thunderstorm to get zapped. You have to understand your bodily energy, your Chakras, before you can safely move that much foreign energy through your being."

"That's ridiculous. I can already bend lightning. Redirecting it should be a simple task."

"It is simple. You're _simply dead _if you do it wrong. I won't let you think you can allow that much power near your vital organs without giving you a proper run down on what your vital organs _are_ and how they relate to the flow of energy through your body."

"Fine." Azula was aggravated, but she accepted his terms if it meant getting what she wanted.

More power. She demanded it of herself.


	16. Desperate Resolve

Not much to say here other than…

Enjoy.

EDIT: Woke up this afternoon, 4/2/11, and added something.

**Chapter 16: Desperate Resolve**

Sokka slumbered like a platypus-bear all through the night. He dreamt of his boy, just like his dad in so many ways: his eyes, his toes, his sense of humor. It was all there. He was so proud. Slender, feminine finger's caressed his cheek like the gentle tread of ladybug legs. It actually felt like something was on his cheek.

The warrior awoke and swatted the brown arachnid back into the soft dirt. He sat up, throwing his blanket off, and brushed himself all over, fearing more insects had been using his clothing as a sleeping bag. When he was sure that he was the only tenant of his tunic, he turned to his right and saw that Toph was still asleep on her bed of dirt, compacted and made as dense as granite for a supported, comfortable night's rest. His clamor hadn't woken the Earthbender who was sensitive to the minutest of seismic tremors.

Early morning sunlight struggled to penetrate the dense mass of green leaves above them. He looked to where Nuan was sleeping. She was gone. All that remained was a flattened patch of dirt where she had laid. Sokka hurried over to the vacant sleeping space and placed his palm on it. It was cold and there were no footprints or signs of her flight. Nuan was long gone.

Sokka growled and stomped over to his stuff.

"What, what?" Toph snorted as she jerked awake.

"Nuan's gone," he answered as he hurriedly packed up his blanket into his animal-skin pack.

"What?" Toph was groggy and confused. She looked over and, indeed, Nuan was not there.

"Dammit! She dragged us all the way out here and we're probably nowhere near Azula and that Waterbender. She lied to us. How could she do that? Toph, I though you could feel her lying through the ground with your seismic sense."

"I can, but she was just so stressed all the time I couldn't tell what a lie was and what was just her being angry."

"Well, then, how did she slip away last night? Couldn't you feel her footsteps?"

"I was tired. We've been walking for days and my feet are sore and, you know what, I don't like that all this seems to be my fault, Sokka. Why didn't _you_ catch her lying? Why didn't _you_ hear her when she ran away last night?"

"AaaahhhhGAH!" he screamed as he pulled his wife's sword and slit a clean groove in the trunk of a nearby pine.

"Yeah, cut something. That'll make everything better," said the blind woman with serious sarcasm.

"Toph!" the man bristled and then paused. "I'm not blaming you. I… I'm just… Fen Rui," he whispered. Toph thought she could hear her friend sniffling, crying. "I should've just tracked them myself from the beginning," Sokka said, regaining his composure. "There's no way we can find them, now. The trail's gone completely cold."

* * *

"Gentlemen," hailed Bai Tan as he walked briskly into the room and took a seat at the head of a long table surrounded by about twenty red-robed men of various girths. "Let us bring this meeting to order." The chatter died down and all the sunken age worn eyes of the Fire Nation political advisory board rolled to their senior advisor. "We are here to confirm our course of action relating to the matter of the Loyalist Insurgence. We have been through various plans of attack and finally settled on the plan proposed by Auditor Jiro and his associates a few weeks ago. We shall strictly regulate commerce from here on out, suspending free trade and habeas corpus until we can be sure that this crisis is passed."

"It's a mistake, you know," croaked a jowly man seated to Bai Tan's right.

"Master Hideki, we are all aware of your objections, but-"

"But you still insist on going through with this farce. It's a farce is what it is.

"All the intelligence we have collected implies that the terrorists have become an inert group. Soon, they will stagnate and parish, along with their agendas."

"I would rave if that were believable," another man chimed through his thick black beard, "but the decrease in activity seems too sudden to be a result of something as simple as _lost interest_."

"Yes, they have gone underground." concurred yet another man. "They are lying in wait. We need to squeeze them."

"I don't deny that as a possibility," defended the bullfrog like detractor. "However, you can't possibly expect to 'squeeze them' by something like cutting off a bratty kid's allowance."

"Why? It all seems logical. If they are not fed, they will die. They cannot survive if we cut off their supplies and that's what this is all about."

"We're diverting all our national guard and police forces away from the search for these men in order to enforce this ridiculous regimentation of our resources."

"We've all heard your grievances before," Bai Tan said, his powerful carrying through the windowless room. "Yet, you still fail to propose any feasible plan to help resolve this problem."

"'Feasible plan!'" yelled Master Hideki, slamming his meaty fist on the table and sending a ripple through his sagging neck flesh. "What we're doing now is feasible: hunting these little rodents, making an effort to find them and squash them and be sure of their destruction instead of just starving them out. This passive approach will yield no certainty that they are exterminated."

"This, sir, is in no way a passive approach. In fact, I don't feel entirely right about effectively turning the Fire Nation into a police state, but without safety and order we can't expect the people to continue on. Things will fall apart or worse, we'll wake up one morning and an army of insurgents will fall upon us like a malicious mountain."

"You idiots can't possibly swallow this. This is wrong. We are punishing the people for the actions of a few radicals. I can't believe you convinced the Fire Lord to even consider this course, much less go through with it."

"This was a joint decision."

"Yes, and I am the great Agni incarnate. We're all aware that you have his ear. Why he trusts a…" the man stopped short, reconsidering his words.

"Trusts a what?" boomed Bai Tan, though there was no anger in his enormous tone. "By all means, Master Hideki, speak plainly. Call me the mongrel son of a dirt peasant. Don't feel you have to put up a front in the presence of your fellow royal advisors."

"Bai Tan, I harbor no ill will towards your family, but I feel…"

"Of course you do!" Now the head advisors composure had completely broken and he was filling the room with his bellicose voice. "You think that just because my father was a lowly Earth Kingdom citizen that I am not deserving of my position. Just because my mother was a destitute colonial woman, colonials being worth less than the scum round your mouths, you think I too am a worthless commoner. That, sir, is the kind of jingoism that kindled the Great War and I will not let it slide beneath the surface, here, where honest men work to raise this nation out of the ignorant hatred that has been let to fester within its own womb."

"Gentlemen," he addressed the rest, "do not falter at this critical point. I feel it is my duty to tell you, the Fire Lord is scared of what he is about to enact. He is unsure that this is right for his people, but this is the best course of action. We have, for the most part, agreed in this. We cannot be seen questioning ourselves. We cannot seed doubt in the Fire Lord. We must buttress him upon the stiff shoulders of our resolve so that he may go through with this terrible, necessary action that we take. Are we all agreed?"

Bai Tan stood, his smooth stone features crowned by a neat black haircut, his black robes trimmed in gold and bright vert, hung neat and straight. He was as a dark-marble obelisk at the head of the table.

The jowly detractor screwed up his face with some effort and challenged the younger man's stolid mien.

* * *

"What has happened to my fire?" was a question that had been plaguing Azula since her training in Xidezhen. At her peak, before the war ended and she was still Princess of the Fire Nation, the flames that she generated were pale blue and much stronger, much more intense. It was if her Firebending had regressed to the level she had when she was a child, which was still formidable. She was a Firebending prodigy, after all.

It baffled her, but it wasn't the change in color or even the lessening of intensity that bothered her the most. It was the utter loss of her most deadly ability. She couldn't Lightningbend. She had ran through the form, exactly as she remembered it, a dozen times, but all she could manage to generate was a concussive burst of smoke and flame that knocked her to the ground.

Her form must have been bad. That was the only explanation and it seemed reasonable. She had trouble with her basics back at the inn but, with a little practice, she got them back. Perhaps she just needed practice. It was humbling - humbling and infuriating.

Like any Fire Nation five year-old, Azula was wise enough to know that perfect practice makes perfect, and since her practice was only perfectly frustrating, she decided to bed down in some soft grass for a nap. A great beautiful sun hovered above and blanketed her with warmth, comfort, and she dozed away.

The crimson palace burned. In a crimson arena, in a blood crimson smoke, in a surround of crimson clay shingles stacked on volcanic buildings, Azula, armored in crimson trimmed blackness, stood. It was a beautiful color, a beautiful glow, but, still, she felt wrong. Cross. Heavy. Constricted by the tight ties knitting her armor plates together. Jagged plates of impenetrable blackness held together by snakes of unbreakable rope. Plates like hard clay, holding in the sweltering breath from her skin, humid, damp. In her room, wide and neat and crimson, Azula looked on her veiled bed. She could sleep, peacefully there, but not in her armor and not with all that whispering fire outside. The crimson palace yet burned. The no fire outside whispered like thousands of mounds of falling ash. "Azula," cooed her mother in the mirror, jerking to look at her wild-eyed daughter with wild-eyes. "You are always perfect. No matter what, you're my perfect daughter and you will always be loved. Take off your armor. Sleep in your bed." The woman twitched madly with her predatory gaze behind the glass and it was suddenly frightened and panicked, just like Azula's. The young Firebender struck out her fist and a gout of flame spewed against the glass. Another from her other hand gifted like a shimmering orange poppy to the wall, up to the roof, down to the bed. The bed went up with a surprisingly passionate heat. Flaming moths of silk fluttered. The crimson palace now burned. Azula was in the arena. All around her, before dark, smoldering background under the clay awnings, the Dai Li, the royal guard, Li, Lo, the servants all stood . They did not move or speak. They merely stared stoically from afar. Almost against her will, Azula spewed out in her gouts of violet flame, tearing, clawing, grasping, devouring, throwing up, catching all. They did not move or speak. They merely stared stoically from afar, and whispered like thousands of mounds of falling ash as the crimson palace burned. Azula could still hear them, but they could not see anymore. So she wept alone. Not alone. A shadow cast over her. A comforting shadow and it embraced her with strong arms. "Father," Azula choked, quelling her tears. "I ruined it all. It's all on fire and I can't stop it." The shadow of Ozai spoke in dark tones that caressed her ears. "Yes. Impressive. It is quite beautiful." "But… But I destroyed everything. It's all gone. They're all gone. I can still hear them, but they're gone and I'm scared." "You needn't be. I'm still here. Look up, Azula. Look out at that impenetrable horizon of rosy smoke and perpetual flame. Isn't it comforting? The fire never stops, never wallows in sadness or fear, never lies still. It dances, always. It is consistent. It is comforting. It will always be here. The crimson palace burned, always.

Azula opened her eyes slowly and was looking at the sun. She turned her head and was still laying in the grass, with green trees and blue mountains surrounding. These dreams had been getting more vivid and her sense of place began to falter. But is was so ridiculous. Obviously it was a dream, though she did wonder. Had her father ever been that warm to her, that gentle and understanding? She couldn't remember. No. It was just another nightmare.

With a deep breath, she leapt to her feet and began another arduous bout of Firebending attempts and failures.

Qilaq came to see what all the commotion was about. Sure enough, there was the Firebender, standing in her underwear in a clearing a half-mile away from the waterfall. The young woman's tenacity was impressive. It was one of the few things about her that he admired. The rest of her personality either amused him or annoyed him. That was probably how she felt about him, he thought.

He sat on a half buried boulder next to where Azula had placed her neatly folded robes and watched the young woman, who ignored his voyeurism. Once more, she slid her feet into position, careful to maintain her balance, then pointed her middle and forefingers and crooked her arms.

Qilaq recognized the form and mused how similar the motions were to Waterbending. She shifted her weight from leg to leg and drew her fingers through the air, surged the tingling energy through her lithe muscles and then struck out her right fingers. The resulting smoky explosion knocked her back five feet and onto her back.

"That wasn't lightning," said Qilaq, mildly humored by her tumble.

"No _shit_!" screamed Azula. Qilaq shut up immediately. He didn't feel like exploding today. "I'm gonna go splash around in the river, now."

"Yeah, you do that," spit the Firebender dusting herself off.

Before Qilaq left, he turned and said, "You know, it'll be hard to teach you how to redirect lightning if I can't show you lightning being redirected. I mean, I can show you the moves and explain it to you, but the practice is in the doing."

"I know that!" she yelled, obviously frustrated. "Just go play with your water."

The Waterbender's eye twitched, but he was otherwise unaffected by the remark. "Well, when you're done blowing yourself away, come to the river and I'll show you a couple things in preparation for lightning redirection," he said with a wry smile.

As he walked away, the Firebender made a face with her mouth lolled open and struck her fore and middle fingers up in an insulting gesture. Again, she tried to generate lightning, but only managed to make her backside and demeanor sorer. She'd had all she could stomach of failure for the day, so she warmed down with a few medium sets and enjoyed the yawning clearing wreathed by trees and looming mountains. A couple of flowers and blades of grass suffered as a result of her Firebending, but no conflagrations were kindled.

When she was done, she put her robes back on and started back towards the river. The worn fabric clung to her sweaty skin. She desperately needed a bath. Luckily, they were camping on a river, so getting clean was a simple matter, though the disturbing thought of what could be defecating in that water upstream had crossed her mind. Were she still matriculated royalty, she wouldn't have even considered bathing in the woods, but her standards had been forced to lessen over the years. This was actually far better than prison, the naked Sun, the prickle of hardy grass, the space in every direction with no walls in sight. The open was wonderful.

She combed her fingers through her slightly tangled hair as she approached the river and leapt nimbly across a line of firmly planted rocks that bridged the two river banks. As she squeezed between two water-worn boulders she spotted Qilaq half-naked and standing in the middle of the wide shallows in front of the cave they had claimed as their sleeping space.

His skin was soaked and burnished in the late day light. He was up to his thighs in river and she couldn't be sure from her vantage point, but it looked as though the water was flowing around his legs without touching them. Two bulges emerged from the water's steadily flowing surface and took on blank human forms, like naked manikins. The doppelgangers looked poised to attack Qilaq and they did.

The form in front of him lashed out and jabbed its pointed liquid hand at him like a knife blade. Qilaq's torso dodged it without much immediate movement in his head and legs, but when the shape swung its other arm at him the Waterbender was forced to block the blow with his forearm. The watery arms splashed but maintained their form, for the most part.

Behind him, the other body of water leapt to grab him, but he ducked beneath its grasp and spun around its leg, sweeping it into the air, where it completely lost all form and fell in a shower of crystal globules. The water didn't seem to be slowing him at all. He moved with as much speed as he would in thin air. Azula couldn't say for sure, but he must have been bending the water away from his arms and legs as he moved.

As he jabbed his own pointed hand at the first water man the water that made up the other splashed into the river and rose, reformed into a humanoid shape. Qilaq's jab would have gone up through the shape's stomach and up into its torso, but it was dodged and his straight arm grasped. The water tried to bend his elbow the opposite direction, but as it did that, the Waterbender twisted his body over and righted the bend of his arm while snapping a kick at the attacking, reintegrated doppelganger.

The man's movements were incredibly fluid when he fought. Azula had even noticed his grace in mundane movements: walking, turning, gesturing while he spoke. All those nuances were tells that the conniving young woman had trained her eye to catch to gauge her opponents prowess before even fighting them. That was part of the reason why she was always victorious. Her fights were decided before they began.

Watching him dodge and parry his invincible doppelgangers, the sound of the distant waterfall, repetitious birdsong, it was hypnotic. Quickly and beneath her awareness, it all went mute and a voice that felt behind her ear spoke as though it were miles down river. _I am like that. That's why I always win. I don't fight losing battles. I've seen him fight enough to know. Yes, dance and show me your moves. I'll just file it away and, when the time comes, I will have you beaten. Oh, thank you so for your foolish compassion. I don't care if you can end me with a gesture. I've seen you fight. I know you._

After five minutes, Qilaq swept his hand across the rivers slowly sliding surface and a length of water hardened into a blade of ice. He spun and slashed across the two forms' chests, then cut up the second from crotch to and cut down the first from crown to crotch. They promptly melted back into inanimate liquid and flowed away, formless.

The water was gently lapping against his thighs, now. He slogged through the current back to shore.

"Doesn't seem that hard. You know what they're going to do before they even do it."

"Well, they know what I'm going to do before I do it, too," he responded with his bright smile. "Anyway, fighting them isn't the trick. Getting them to fight is the trick." He dunked under the surface of the water and burst back out after a few seconds, sending a spray of prismatic water droplets through the air. They seemed to descend into the river slower than gravity would have liked.

"And only two at once?" further critiqued Azula.

Qilaq still wore his smile but the skin under his left eye twitched violently and it sounded like he was growling, though almost completely inaudibly.

"I can do more at night or if I really push myself. I'm actually a little out of practice."

"It shows." It didn't. He was astounding, but something in the Firebender told her to give him a hard time.

"Well, just wait till I'm back in form. Then it'll really be a show. Speaking of show," he brightened up, dripping all over the place, "I was thinking about putting on a little water puppet show. Sound good?"

"You know what would really sound good? You teaching me how to redirect lightning."

"A one track mind, yours."

"I like to think of it as _focused_."

"I'll bet. Well, sit down and we'll get started. There's a bit of a preface to get through."

* * *

"So, are we going through with it?" Zuko asked his steadfast advisor in the dancing firelight of his throne room.

"As you know, some of the councilors still disagree with this course of action, but the majority of us feel it is for the best. Don't worry, my lord. The people are strong. You will of course be confronted with a torrent of protest, even from your greatest supporters, but that is something you will have to weather. They may not see it now, but, in the long run, this is for the best."

"I hope so."

The doors at the front of the chamber groaned open. Naoki, Zuko and Bai Tan all steeled themselves. They weren't expecting any visitors. An attack? An assassination attempt? They were ready for anything.

A young auditor stepped through the door to the relief of the three battle ready men. He was breathless, though it didn't appear to be from physical exertion. He seemed more shocked than exhausted.

"My lord," he bowed, deeply, "you have a most esteemed visitor."

"Is that our cue?" a boyish voice from behind the door queried.

"I think so," responded a dark-toned feminine voice. "What other 'esteemed visitor' is here."

"He didn't mention you, though."

"Let's just go in."

Two figures emerged from behind the door, a dark skinned woman dressed in blue with lengths of her black hair hung in low hanging loops, framing her face, the other dressed in citrine robes with a prominent teal arrow tattoo crowning his shaven head.

"May I present to you, Fire Lord Zuko, the Avatar."

"Katara's here, too." the orange clad Avatar added with a smile and a point to the woman at his side.

"Hi, Zuko, I mean, Fire Lord," said the woman with a wave.

The room was so still, so silent, Aang could swear he heard a cliché breeze rush through the chamber. "Oh, my apologies, Fire Lord Zuko," said Aang with a courteous bow. Zuko pushed passed his advisor with an intense look on his face and paced briskly at the two intruders. He got uncomfortably close to the diminutive Aang and poured an intimidating look into the teenage Avatar. Aang didn't know what to do. Had he offended his old friend by arriving unannounced?

Before he could formulate a response, Zuko snatched up Aang in his arms and squeezed his long departed friend with the most intense hug he could muster. The Fire Lord was beyond words. Aang was also beyond words, though mostly because Zuko was nearly squeezing the breath out his bony body, but he didn't mind. He returned the embrace. He was happy to see his friend, too.

Katara just beamed, happy to see the two of them happy, while Naoki screwed up his face under his perpetually scowling faceplate. The young bodyguard had no idea how to approach this situation. He barely knew what was going on. That's the Avatar? He's so… small.

Bai Tan also adopted a confused look, though deep inside, the darker part of his ambitions screamed at this turn of events. His plan was in jeopardy now. With the Avatar, the most powerful being in the world, here in the Fire Nation, the success of his coup was sharply brought into question. It wasn't a deal breaker, but it meant that he may have to push up his timetable. How was his brother proceeding with his mission to gather their trump card with which to topple the house? Would it even matter anymore, now that the Avatar had returned?


	17. Magic Water Music

This will be the post in place of the regular Sunday update because I have a short film score to work on this weekend.

The man from the frozen north becomes deeper still and Zuko speaks with an old friend.

Enjoy and don't be shy about picking it apart or picking my brain as to where I get this crazy stuff.

**Chapter 17: Magic Water Music**

They sat in the mouth of their wide, tubular cave. The angle of the sun shone on the south side of the portal where Azula sat. The north side was shaded and Qilaq leaned against the shadowy wall with a contented sigh.

"Okay, first a little general knowledge to get you in the mind set. Beyond the elemental dynamo, there is a deeper aspect to the powers that we benders posses and exert. It's all a part of the one soul of the universe, sometimes referred to as 'cosmic energy.'" Azula's face dropped. "Don't give me that look, Dame Cynicism," Qilaq scolded.

"This sounds like it has nothing to do with lightning redirection," she retorted.

"The history's a part of the learning of you're much sought after technique."

The proud Fire Nation citizen within her chose this moment to puff up with bluster. "I'm a top graduate of a prestigious learning institution and a prodigious practitioner and student of martial and psychological warfare, past and present."

"Mhm. So you know this technique?"

_He's got me there._

"Is this really necessary?"

"If you want to get from birth to death, you have to live through life. Or, rather, _yes_. Deal with it," he snapped curtly. His temper seemed much shorter than usual.

Azula just shifted her crossed arms and leaned her back against the softly curved cave wall. "Alright, guru or sifu or whatever. I'm listening."

"Right," Qilaq said with a twitch in his eye, trying to get his train of thought back on track. "So, the universe is all one thing. Everything is linked and consolidated, which makes for a very tidy mess." Qilaq laughed at his silly contradiction and Azula rolled her eyes. He cleared his throat, seeing his joke had fallen on humorless ears, and continued with his serious explanation. "The best way to understand these links is in assigning the different abstract aspects of existence to something physical, like the body. These focal points are mapped throughout your trunk and are called _chakras. _There are seven such chakras, all relating to a specific sphere - or set of spheres - of understanding and being."

"The first and lowest of these points, both spiritually and physically, is the Muladhara chakra. It is at the base of spine, where the fire serpent Kundalini slumbers, coiled. This relates to corporeal reality, earthly consciousness and instinct. It is the simple animal part of us. It also connects us with the elements and makes Bending possible."

"Next up, three finger widths below your bellybutton, is the Svadishthana chakra. It is the point where the womb of the universe becomes pregnant with possibility. This is where all fantasy, all carnal desire originates: a sensuous, limitless, six-petalled lotus within us."

"Above that, in the stomach, is the Manipura chakra. This is the connection to the red realm of fire, a realm you Firebenders can certainly relate to. It is a realm out of position when compared to the rest of the spheres. It's low in the body, though it deals with the trans-human aspect of judgment just above the peak of human existence, the gold of the soul. In any case, it's an interregnal part of Lightningbending, seeing as how that technique deals with creating an imbalance that must be resolved. That's what this chakra is all about: restoring the balance." Azula's eyes flashed when he said this. Something about his tone seemed to denote that his words were double edged, though she could never be sure with him. He was such a fantastic liar. _Just like me_.

Qilaq clapped his hands together. "Well, I can see I'm losing you, so, since you don't need to know anything about the other chakras to redirect lightning, we'll move on. Now, the two chakras we are most concerned with are the Muladhara and the Manipura. These two are simply accessed and act as junctures for the two ways you can redirect lightning. One way is down through the Muladhara and into the ground through your legs. This is where you root yourself in simple survival mode and use the earth to ground the lightning. It's key that you be rooted to the ground, otherwise the energy may go wild and end up somewhere… bad." He tapped his chest.

"You can also draw the energy through your Manipura chakra and turn your enemy's lightning against them. I can see by the twinkle in your eye that that is what you really want to learn. Well, after you demonstrate redirection through your Muladhara then I'll show you how to fire back at your opponent."

"So then, how do I use the Many… Moo… Mooladara…" Azula stammered to repeat the esoteric words, then gave a frustrated huff. "How do I use these things!"

Qilaq sighed and shut his eyes. He didn't move or speak and the silence gapped and became awkward. It looked like the hunched man had just nodded off. Azula opened her mouth to yell him awake, but his eyes snapped back open.

"As to the usage of your chakras," he went on, "or bending for that matter, we go back to the unity in the universe. There is a human element that is separate from these spheres of existence yet pulls them all together, linking them like a chain. It is the strongest thing we humans possess: not the mind or the soul, but the will. The mind is just an interpreter and the soul is merely the anchor for consciousness. The will is stronger than any of those static elements because it has motion, it has drive, it has purpose. The strongest person on the planet is nothing if he never chooses to use his strength."

"When you bend - when you run through your sets, when you use your power - you are exerting your will on something: nature, someone else's face, yourself. With that key fact nestled in the back of your head, you realize that your power does not come from how strong you are, physically, or how lithe you are, or even how ferocious you are. It all originates from the will. Thus, a bender is only as strong as their resolve. How _willing_ they are to do, to act. How _willing_ they are to fight. How willing they are to kill."

He paused and let the last word hang in the air.

"I say 'kill' because, outside of the huge variety of practical applications that Bending lends itself to, fighting-to-win comes out on top. The exertion of will is seldom _against_ static forces. More often than not, it is one will versus another, conflicting will. Such is the nature of the universe. It's kill or be killed, will over or be willed over."

"Why are you telling me _this_?" Azula asked with intrigue and slight disillusion.

"I'm just teaching you the way my father taught me, word for word, almost."

"Your father?" Her own father's sharply shadowed visage flashed across her mind, his voice low and maniacal, like hers.

"Yes. He was a… shaman, I suppose is the term, and so, he was very disconnected from the politics of the Tribe and the world at large, which allowed him to explore some of the more interesting and dangerous aspects of the worldly sphere and those spheres beyond. He raised me and that's where I learned all 'this.'"

He waved his hand vaguely. "Back to our point. I explained these and various other things to Iroh shortly after meeting him. He was very adult about having a kid several decades his junior teach him about bending and the world."

"Okay, stop. Uncle being _taught_ by you?" Azula asked with sharp disbelief. "I don't understand why he would listen to you, a Waterbender. Uncle was a Fire Nation general. He was fighting against you."

"We're getting off topic here. I may weave that yarn for you some other time, but for now, 'unity and what can be accomplished through it.'"

"No. Weave it now," she demanded, slapping a flame against the grey-stone wall of the cave. "What relationship do you have with my uncle?"

"Iroh killed my dad during his siege of Ba Sing Se."

Azula's eyes went wide and the shocked silence yawned across time. _Old wounds open fresh pains._

Qilaq soberly continued. "I cried over dad's burnt corpse and Iroh, instead of killing me, then and there, gathered me up and took me out of the battle. He… apparently he had lost his son, recently. That was why he was raging through the city. Seeing me there must have jarred something in him, helped him along." There wasn't a hint of sadness in his voice. It was like he was reading history off of some aged, yellow scroll. He had the same tone when he explained Bloodbending to her a few days earlier, though it lacked that hint of sadistic amusement.

"Whatever happened, it leads me to my next point. After I explained this stuff to Iroh, he was intrigued. Kind of out of the blue, he suggested that we develop a way to directly defend against Lightningbending. The concept of heat transfer and adjustment is something that both Waterbending and Firebending have in common, so we thought we'd work on that. Actually, it turned out to have nothing to do with redirecting lightning. Luckily, we realized this before we tested it, me on the receiving end."

"It's obvious, really. If you're struck by lightning, you redirect it, your body redirects it. It doesn't matter if you're a Firebender, Earthbender or an average Lee. Your body will alter the lightning's path. The trick is to set up your body to engineer that path according to your will. That's where the chakras come in and your use of willpower to focus external energy through your internal light."

The man let out another sigh. "I think that's enough for now. If you need, I can explain it again, but later. Right now, I'm going downstream to wash. You're welcome to join me." He said with a suggestive smile.

"No," she said with a slow bat of her eyes and a nonplused look.

"Just thought I'd put it out there," he said as he strode through the loose, gray river rocks that made up the shore.

_So much in that man, so abysmal. So much to take advantage of._

_

* * *

_

The royal arena was a dismal place in the memory of both the Fire Lord and the Waterbending master who now occupied its sprawling vacancy. Katara had just woken up from her uncomfortably plushy bed and decided to take a walk around the palace grounds. She lost her way into the wide open space where years ago, during the centennial near miss of Sozin's Comet, Zuko and her had fought and beaten Azula. Well, she beat Azula. She froze her and then chained the wretched princess up, letting her spout fire and moans and cries like a spoiled little child denied some special plaything. The memory was vivid, and so was the rush of fire. In fact, she could hear it, along with a series of manly grunts.

Across the orange glowing field of smoothed stone, she saw the Fire Lord, slicing through his Firebending forms, shirtless, his black hair bound by a brass circlet at the top of his head, hands and forearms thoroughly wrapped in white bandages. Katara remarked on how overly defined his body was. He seemed to have been that way since she knew him.

"I'll be with you in a minute, Katara," said the bare-backed Zuko. "Let me just finish this set."

"No rush," she said. After the her friend started fighting the air once more, chopping flames through it, Katara walked around the perimeter of the courtyard to where Naoki was standing at rigid attention. He grew stiffer as the bronze skinned woman approached with the morning sun against her cheek.

"You know, I don't think I've seen Zuko without you nearby since I've been here."

"Yes, ma'am," confirmed the red armored bodyguard in his excessively formal way. "It is my duty to guard the Fire Lord at all times, ma'am."

"All times?" she laughed. "So you don't sleep?"

"No. I mean… yes, ma'am, but only an allotted eight hours a night. During that time I am relieved by a contingent of night guards."

"Wow. And your name is?"

"Ma'am, I am Nao-"

A peal of thunder echoed across the landscape. A jagged stream of light tore into the sky and the sharp smell of static filled the air following the violent explosion of energy.

"Zuko," Katara gasped. "That was…"

"Lightning," the Fire Lord finished for her as he relaxed from his sharp attack stance. "Yes. It took a lot of work. A lot of meditating and practice, but my mind is finally clear enough for me to Lightningbend."

"But why?"

"Why? Why not? If it's within my power, shouldn't I do it?"

"Well, I just… All I've ever known of Lightningbending is fear. Azula almost killed Aang with it. She almost killed _you_ with it."

"Right. And now, if I ever have to face her again, I'll have the upper hand."

"But Iroh already taught you how to redirect it. You can already defend against it. Isn't that enough?"

"Katara, if I can improve myself in any way, I want to do it."

"I wouldn't call that an improvement."

"It's a part of my discipline."

"Its just such and evil thing, shooting lightning. All it does is kill. That's all it's used for."

"Well, I feel safer with it."

"Safer?" laughed the Southern Waterbender. "Zuko, you're the Fire Lord. Forget how good a Firebender you are; you've got an army of guards protecting you. Look at Nao… uh, what was it again?"

"Naoki, ma'am," said the guard still in awe of the spectacle that he had just witnessed.

"…Naoki, over there. You've got loyal men like him around all the time and now you've got your friends."

The Fire Lord laid his palm over his aching scarred eye.

"Zuko, are you okay?" asked Katara concernedly.

"I'm fine," he lied. "Actually, I'm not fine. My eye's been acting up. It's been hurting for a while now."

"Here let me see." She moved Zuko's wrapped hand away and gently placed her finger tips on his marred face. "It doesn't look all that different."

"No. It's something in my eye. Something's going wrong in it. The doctors say, soon, I'll lose sight in it completely."

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "Maybe I can do something. I do have a healing touch, you know?"

"Maybe." he said. She had a very cold touch, but it was soothing. It then struck Zuko that the Avatar wasn't around. "Where's Aang?"

Katara lowered her hand and furrowed up a thoughtful look. Where was Aang, indeed. Ever since his final battle with Ozai, ever since he became a fully realized Avatar, he seemed… distant. Like he had let something go. "He said he was going to see someone," she answered. "Someone he'd been wondering about for a while."

"Oh." Zuko said. He knew who that someone was.


	18. Troubled Liar

Note to Reader: I noticed that I forgot to delete some notes from chapter sixteen. It's fixed now. This was originally going to be several chapters, but I decided to smash them together. So it's a bit long for a single chapter, but I cut so much from Azula's and Qilaq's time in the woods that it adds up to a lot less. It's for the best, as it keeps the narrative from going stale. Anyway…

Aang sees Ozai after all these years and Azula fights.

**Chapter 18: Troubled Liar**

It was night now. The days seemed stretch out forever in the wilderness, but recently Azula's mind had been so racked with contemplation that she was barley cognizant of the hours she spent fighting through her martial forms. After starting, it seemed like a blank pallet unfurled in front of her waking eyes and vivid paints smeared images of red and gold and hard black, indistinct but familiar, like the meeting of relatives she had never met.

Before she knew it, she was tired and sweaty and felt her failed Lightningbending in her sore backside. The day was done, light fading and staining the sky pink over the horizon. She went back to the cave.

So, by the rocky riverside, Azula sat. The water was calm and clear. An opalescent fish circled in front of her, chasing its tail then giving up and swimming on. The sun shone its glistening reflection on the ever flowing surface. There was her reflection, rippling. She reflected on what she had done, become. She reflected on herself.

"It's comforting to know She is always there, regardless of how bright she shines, twirling around us in an eternal, celestial dance."

Azula turned slowly to Qilaq, who was standing and staring into the mild starlight. The young woman traced his gaze and let her gold eyes fall on the waning moon, rising above the dark silhouette of a looming mountain. "How do you know it's a 'she'?" Azula asked.

"Half the forces in the universe are female. The Sun is a penetrative masculine force on the planet, on the universe, and the Moon is an accepting feminine force, reflecting the power of the Sun in a soft, comforting way." His voice was lower, almost distant. The things he seemed to say ever since he started teaching her all came across as though they were rehearsed and memorized from some now disintegrated script.

"So, your father was a Shaman," she asked without looking back at him. "Does that make you a Shaman, too?"

"I suppose." He sat next to her. Shifting river rocks beneath him ground as he got comfortable. "Not a proper one, but I did spend a lot of time with my dad. He taught me all about the nature of the universe; the human body; herbs, though it was only recently that I could remember anything about them and I still can't remember where to find many of the useful, wild ones; hallucinations; spirits; demons. He made me the man I am today."

"And what about your mother?"

"Why are you asking me so many personal questions?"

_Oh, so abysmal. I need to know what buttons to press, when the time comes. _"What else is there to do?"

He looked away at first but then looked back her with his chin lowered and his prominent, dark eyebrows raised. "Plenty," he answered.

Azula had been revisiting her family within her mind for the past week. Details that were once far off in a fog and meaningless now carried such a vivid weight that she could feel her heart sag under each memory each moment. "My father banished my mother," she finally spouted. "I never liked her. I never realized how much I loved her until… some time later."

"Okay, if you want to get all serious." Qilaq grumbled. "My mom died when I was eight, I think."

"You 'think?'"

"I was young and, like I said, I spent most of my time with my dad. It was a soul shaping experience for me, to be sure, but… I still had dad. A few years later, he took me with him to fight the Great War."

"You couldn't have been more than twelve. He brought you into battle when you were that young?"

"I was plenty capable by that time and plenty safe with my dad. Fast-forward and we end up here. There's more to it than that, of course, but it would take far too long to tell the whole tale. Sure, I miss them, both of them, but it's best to just… forget it all."

"'Forget it all?'"

"Well, not forget it all, but… you know… get over it."

"I suppose." Azula's eyes were fixed on the river, a soft white glow fluxing on the surface. She stared beneath. The fish wasn't there.

* * *

The low fire light stained the grimy walls rouge. The light colored Aang the same as made his way down the craggy halls of the Capital City Prison. Opposite each flickering red lamp was a tarnished steel door. They lined the wall to Aang's right at regular intervals.

After a few moments walking through the red gloom, the smell of sweat and stone polluting his nostrils, he stopped. This was the door. He opened it. A locked cage surrounded the opposite wall of the cell. Just above it, a small barred hole allowed the morning sun to fall in, illuminating a small pile of rags and hair. It stirred and rolled over.

"Avatar!" former Phoenix King Ozai exclaimed with a voice raspy from disuse. He pushed himself up with some effort; his grimy, long nailed hands clawed at his straw sleeping mat as he sat up with his back leaned against the wall.

The Avatar said nothing and the graying man did the same, though he shifted, a bit uneasy. "To think my first visitor in years would be you," he chuckled to relive the tension.

"Doesn't Zuko come to see you?" asked Aang.

"No. He stopped coming after he grew tired of badgering me for information regarding his mother's whereabouts."

"You wouldn't tell him?"

"I couldn't. I only banished her. I didn't send her anywhere in particular and it's a big world out there. She could be anywhere, just like Zuko when I banished him. I had no idea where he was and I didn't care." There was another long bout of silence between the boy and the haggard prisoner.

"It's strange, but I actually think I should thank you for that," Aang ventured. "By your action I gained a friend and ally."

"Yes, he thanked me too, after the fact. It looks as though we never know what's good for us until it has already happened. Huh, I've had a lot of time to think, a lot of time to grieve."

"Grieve?"

"Well… all I have is time, Avatar. Time with myself. Time to reconsider the past, for I have no freedom in my future."

There was another pause before Ozai went on.

"I never cared about my people. I never cared about anyone, other than myself. I suppose it's poetic justice that I am left broken and alone, imprisoned by my own son, no less, though that has little to do with it."

"Do you hate him for it?"

"If I hated anyone it would be you, Avatar," the man rasped, licking his dry lips. "You took my Firebending. You stopped my destiny, or what I thought was my destiny.

"You took everything from me. Everything I inherited, every accomplishment, every ambition I ever had, you took from me. Even my family." Aang thought to remark on how it was him who exiled his wife and son, but Ozai went on. "Even my daughter. How is she, Avatar? How is Azula?"

"She is… fine," Aang guessed. He wasn't really lying. He didn't even know where she was. Nobody did, to his knowledge. Who could say how she was?

The bearded man behind the bars let his low steady laughter echo off the dull masonry. Even without his authority or his willful command over fire, his voice still elicited a certain fear and reverence, though the Avatar would not bend to him. The young Avatar simply stood there and let the laugh echo in the cell like ripples in a well.

"Why don't you rebuke me, Avatar?"

"Because I don't need to waste my energy."

"I see. So, it's a check up, then." There was another pause. "Well… it has been… difficult living with myself. Living with nothing but myself. I've finally had to question myself, question my motives. I only ever did and considered how best to do. I never thought of why, until that's all I could do."

"I have considered it and come to question my time alive. My family's time. Since my grandfather Sozin first declared open war on the rest of the world, there has been nothing else in our minds. I knew nothing else. The war was old before I was young. There has been nothing else. Everything around me was merely a vestigial protrusion from the beating heart of conflict. I have come to wonder what peace is like, truly. I believe I have gained a modicum of peace, though it has been forced upon me. I have been jailed in it, but I wonder what it is like to be free of war. What was the world like before war? What is the world like now?"

"Perhaps you can tell me. Yes, you're the Avatar. You are a soul cycled through countless generations. You gaze thousands of years into the depths of history. Tell me, what was it like? How does a world without conflict exist?"

As a boy, this question would have been something miles above the young Avatar's whimsical bald head, but now, by years of deep meditation in solitude, solitude that both he and the former Phoenix King seemed to have shared, he had the wisdom. He had opened his mind to the experiences, the lives, of his past. He had an answer.

"There has always been conflict. There is no such thing as total peace. If there was, peace would be meaningless. However… the world before the Hundred Years War…" The Avatar thought deeply about how he'd go about expressing such a vast history to Ozai. "It can't be expressed in words. There's not enough time or enough language to tell of the world that has been or even the world that is now. But, if I were to try and sum it up in one word, I'd say the word for the world outside of war is, '_wonderful_.'"

"_Wonderful_."

"Yes. _Wonderful_."

Silence.

"Thank you for that, Avatar."

Aang remained still but he couldn't suppress an inimitable joy from drawing up his features. "I can see that time and peace has changed you. If you want, I can talk to Zuko and get you released."

"No, no," said the time-grayed man with a sigh. "There is nothing for me out in the world, no place, no person…" Ozai's ragged brow furrowed and his angular features betrayed a deep desire. "But there is one thing I wish."

"What's that?"

"Could I possibly see my daughter? She is here in this prison, isn't she?" Aang managed to keep his composure yet again. Ozai didn't know that Azula had escaped and he couldn't know. "I'd only want to see her. I needn't even speak. I just want to see my daughter again."

"I'm sorry, Ozai, but I…" the adolescent Avatar could see the old man's expression falling, his hope fading, and his heart breaking. "…I can't do that, right now. I'll talk with your son and get back to you."

"Oh," was all the man could manage. He looked down between his feet.

"Don't worry. Zuko's a good man. I'm sure he'll let you see her."

Ozai looked up, trying to stay optimistic. "That would be… _wonderful_."

* * *

The edge of the river lapped against her outstretched hand and she awoke on the rocky riverbank. It was dark now. What night was it? She looked up at the waning moon and pulled at her black tresses, stifling a tortured sound in her throat and then growling over it and then giggling. "I" _am_ "going…" _to…_

She stood. Qilaq wasn't in the cave. She would go to him and demand of him…

Qilaq was aware of the eyes spying on him from within the woods. It was a pressure on his back, like sitting in an ocean current without the ocean. He could even guess at whom it was, however he did not let his expression or manner betray his awareness. When the fool decided to make his move, Qilaq would be ready and turn the mercenary's surprise against him.

The whole landscape was laced with the pale light of stars. It was a still night. All the creatures had gone silent or ran off.

Something rustled in the brush. Qilaq didn't move. Soft footsteps came towards him. It was somebody else. It wasn't the mercenary. The Waterbender turned. It was Azula. She wore an odd look beneath a few wayward strands of black hair.

He smiled and tossed something at her. She caught it and examined it. It was a wrinkled brown fruit. It looked rotten. "Go 'head. Try it," Qilaq said. The hungry Firebender looked at the smiling fool with severe skepticism furrowed in her face.

She took half a bite. It was rotten! "This is rotten!"

"It's _vintage_," corrected Qilaq. "Crabapples. The story goes that a fisherman was out trolling off the northern coast of the Earth Kingdom when his net caught on something. It wasn't a reef or an outcropping or an iceberg - he was too far south for the latter. He was perplexed and stuck. Then, there was a tug and whatever had caught his net began to pull his boat steadily out to sea."

"He dunked his head beneath the ocean's glassy surface to get a better look at the thing tugging him along. It was huge and flat and red, covered in translucent yellow balls, each about as big as a clenched fist. It was a giant crab, a mother crab, her unhatched babies covering her carapace. The fisherman freaked out and tried to untangle his net from the creature by pulling on it with all his strength. He pulled and pulled. He pulled so hard that the net dug into his hands, slitting bloody, crisscrossed cuts into his flesh."

"Suddenly, the net jerked loose from the leviathan and the boat slowed to a halt. He pulled in his net and it was full of eggs. He thought to throw them back, but he hadn't caught anything for such a long time, so he brought them back to the market and tried to sell them.

"They sold well because they smelled so sweet, like fresh, honey-glazed raspberries. The next day, however, his patrons came back and complained, like you, that the eggs were rotten. He was driven out of town for trying to poison the town and for being a generally useless fisherman. He took some of the sweet-smelling eggs with him."

"A few days later, he looked in his pack and noticed one of the yellow eggs had cracked and was sprouting like a seed. He was confused, but figured there'd be no harm in planting the thing. So, he planted it and when more of the eggs began to sprout, he planted them too as he journeyed across the Earth Kingdom."

"Each planted egg grew into a stout, gray, fruit-bearing tree. The fruit rots almost a day after it matures and the juice is rather… intoxicating. However, some of the fruit doesn't rot. That fruit matures into more sweet smelling yellow crab eggs and, when _those_ eggs hatch, a bunch of tiny crabs emerge. That's where freshwater crabs come from."

Azula threw the crabapple into the bushes. Qilaq followed it with his eyes. One of them twitched. "Not big on stories, huh?"

"I'm not in the mood for fantasy right now. From what I've learned, history, reality, is far more fantastical and useful, to boot."

Qilaq smiled half-heartedly. It was an impressive sentiment, coming from her. "Yep, history is pretty out there, but we can't forget the stories: stories about gargantuan monsters; stories about the celestial spirits made mortal to balance, to experience, to enjoy the world; stories about benders so strong that they defy the infinite and eternal forces of nature; Earthbenders who rent canyons through vast plains and pushed peninsulas off into islands; Firebenders who summoned up infernos from the deep womb of the planet, who suppressed the immeasurable forces of erupting volcanoes; Waterbenders who culminated and dispersed storms that spilled over every horizon or parted the very seas themselves. My father always told me those stories, while we'd slurp oysters and skip their empty shells back into the ocean."

"Just fantasy."

"What? The oysters?"

"The stories." she clarified with firm annoyance.

"Does it really matter whether they're true stories or not?"

"Well, it does lend a bit of credibility to the whole concept."

"Oh, poo on your rationality. And here I thought you were loosening up."

"Did you love your father?" she asked somberly.

Qilaq felt blindsided, like an invisible hand had smacked him in the back of the head. As a result, his response was unfiltered and automatic. "Of course." He almost laughed, but he saw the morose expression clouding Azula's features and thought better of it.

"No matter what they do, to themselves, to others, to us, they're still family," he said as earnestly as he could. "We can't help but love them. Yes, I loved my dad. He made me the man I am. He told me stories and taught me to fight, took care of me after mom died, took me with him when he left so he could look after me. We fought together in the war. It's an odd sentiment, but the war actually brought us closer together. What about you? Did _you_ love your father?"

The young woman had barely taken in anything Qilaq had said. Her mind was too busy replaying moments from her childhood over in her head. Teasing her brother. Her perpetually melancholy mother. Her stern father. He kept her at arms length, once her powers began to manifest, but there were some memories, buried deep within her: giggles, yellow flowers against her cheek, enormous hands with dry leather palms, the free floating feeling of being picked up at arms length and flying above the ground.

"I did. I still do. He gave me everything, spoiled me rotten, and made me the… made me what I was. What I am, now, too, I suppose."

"See. No matter what they do, they're family and we love them. You still having love for that… man is proof-perfect of that fact."

It was slight, but she caught it: the insult. The insult against her family, against her father. "You never knew him. What right do you have to pass judgment," she said hotly.

"Azula, this is not an argument that… ha! I saw this coming. You can't defend a man like that," he said as though it were an undeniable fact of nature.

"I can't, huh? I can't talk about my own father and what he was like, what he stood for?"

"What did he stand for, hm? I'll tell you."

"You'll tell me?"

"Yes. He stood for war. He was the godhead of a conflict that endured for a hundred years. He was murder incarnate."

Whether or not it was true, Azula felt attacked and she reacted in kind, raising her voice. "Like your one to talk of murder."

"Yes, I certainly am. Since childhood, I have been mired in it. I have breathed the blood of freshly slaughtered men. Do you know that feeling? It's like drowning in hot syrup, sharp like the taste after you vomit, and then you vomit. Did Ozai even know that feeling? That taste? I feel if he did, he may have felt differently about war. No. He would probably relish that feeling."

"You know nothing…"

"Oh quite the scathing dig, you ignorant little woman."

"Ignorant! Well then, teach me, oh all knowing shaman. Tell me about my father."

"He was a monster."

"And that's all you can say about him. You didn't know anything about what kind of a man my father was. You, a lowly soldier blind in all that blood, blood you spilled."

"A soldier I may have been, but lowly… I know madness."

"Oh, I don't doubt that. One second you're smiling and courteous, the next you're threatening throngs of people with icy death. Splattering men against walls like jars of paint. And what's your excuse? You grew up with it. Your dad raised you in it. And then he died. And then you kept killing. You didn't walk away from it."

"That is desertion."

"Who's going to stop you? Long Feng was your commanding officer, right? Boom. You splattered him with a look because you didn't like being his puppet anymore, but it was fine for all those years before. All those years you did his bidding."

"Desertion…"

"Admit it. You just enjoy killing. No. Worse than that. You don't even enjoy it anymore. It's just what you do."

"Desertion of my friends, woman!"

"Yeah, that's rough. I punch Lim out and we go. We just leave. You didn't care how he was. And Nuan. Just take advantage of her hospitality and…"

"Shut your fucking mouth!"

"Oh, am I upsetting you? Well, then-" The punch was quick and caused Azula to stagger back a step. She wasn't expecting that, but it was a delightful reaction all the same. She smiled.

_This is too early. I haven't taken what I need from him. But… I love to see him squirm. It makes me feel so…_

"Come on, woman!" Qilaq beckoned, smiling in kind. "I know you've just been dying to fight me since I beat you in those woods. Well, here's your chan-"

Azula struck out at his face with her clawed hand. Qilaq leaned back just out of her reach. She crouched and kicked a spurt of fire at his feet, but it missed him as he fell and rolled away from her, recovering into a low fighting stance.

The Firebender repositioned herself and stuck out her hands, fingers splayed. _What am I doing? He'll kill me. He'll kill me! No he won't. He won't kill me after all the trouble he's gone through to protect me. Not over this. He'll kill me. He'll kill me!_

"No," said Qilaq, composing himself and standing up. Azula swept her hand down, trailed by an orange lash of fire. She brought her arm back up and the flame followed and lengthened. With a final swing she whipped the flame at the Waterbender, but he was quick to dodge the wide, slow attack.

The Firebender growled and threw a one-two punch followed by a sweeping, overhead kick. All three volleys missed their mark as Qilaq sidled farther and farther away from her. "Fine," she said with a devious smile. "If you not going to fight, then I guess I'll just do this," and she set fire at the western edge of the clearing.

"Dammit, Azula, put it out!"

"What? I can't hear you over all the burning trees!"

"You've lost it."

"Still just the sound of burning!" The conflagration illuminated half of Azula with an intense orange light. Her other side was pitch black.

Qilaq was almost instantly upon her. She was able to parry the first strike with a twist of her wrist, but the second blow came too fast to dodge completely. The Waterbender's pointed hand glanced across her side and she could feel her ribs bruise from the impact. She winced and there was a wisp a flash of metal between the two of them. It came from the trees.

Azula and Qilaq turned in unison and struck out toward the source of the sneak attack. The woods shivered and the blaze swelled and flashed into the sky before it burned itself out and faded. The water from the trees steamed off the smoldering remains.

There was only the faint sound of crackling wood until Qilaq walked over and plucked something out of a nearby tree.

"What is it?" Azula asked, holding her side lightly.

"An arrow," he responded, turning the streamline dart over in his hand before dropping it to the ground. "Poisoned, likely. It was probably the big guy that's been hunting you. He must have been trailing us."

"Good thing he missed," remarked the young woman who was now significantly calmer.

"No, I got hit. Grazed. The tip cut my arm. That's probably why I'm still standing: not a lot of poison, so it's taking a while. I… where are you going?"

"To get that mercenary. He may have an antidote."

"Right. Ha, antidote. If only I could be so lucky."

She searched through the burnt remains of the woods but found no sign of the man, not even a charred corpse. It was unlikely that the blaze had incinerated him. The dart fired after she kindled the blaze, so he must have been clear of it. He must have gotten away.

Azula came back, blackened with charcoal streaks to Qilaq who had his hand on a tree. She wasn't sure if he was using it to lean on or he was just touching it. "No body?" he asked turning towards her.

"Nothing. He must have gotten away."

"Lucky him. Well, I think I might be dead, now."

"You… you don't seem too broken up about it."

"No." he said with the slightest shake at the end of the word. Azula almost didn't notice it. She did notice his eyes, though. They were glistening in the silver-blue starlight.

"Maybe you'll be fine. Maybe the amount isn't enough to kill you."

"Doubtful. Most killer poisons don't need more than a half drop. I'm surprised I'm still… nope." His knees gave and he collapsed onto the ground. Azula started towards him and then hesitated. He shifted onto his back and let out an exasperated sigh.

She stood over him now, looking down into his blank, skyward gaze. "You can't die," she said. "You… you haven't taught me how to redirect lightning yet."

Qilaq laughed carefully, trying not to stress his slowly constricting lungs. "Your concern for my well being is touching, Azula. By the Moon, you are crazy."

"Well…" Azula looked away and thought about what she could do. "You're a Bloodbender aren't you?"

"Even if the Moon was full, I doubt I could bend poison from my blood."

"But, you did it for Nobu, back at the inn." "No, I just pushed the fluid out of his lungs and tried to close some internal wounds. I doubt if he even survived, though he would have at least been able to breathe freely, in the end." Something in Azula sank. There was a hollow feeling in her stomach. "No, poison is different. It's mixed in with my blood, so, short of bleeding myself, I'm polluted and I'm going… to die."

"Oh, please. What kind of Bloodbender are you if you can't even push out a little poison?"

"I couldn't even… I'm too tired to argue. I'm too tired to come up with anything. I can't filter blood anyway. I've never done that. All I've ever done is stopped hearts, frozen veins and made people… 'splode."

"So, you're not even going to fight."

"Fight what? Fight the poison? Fight my body? Fight myself?"

"Fight Madness! Fight Oblivion!"

"Madness? Oblivion?"

"What are you, an iguana-parrot?"

"I think you might be a little crazier than…" Azula growled as he trailed off and smiled. "It's okay… I… I welcome…" his deep voice was shrinking to a whisper. A sound escaped his throat. A whimper. "Azula… now that it's… so close… I… I'm afraid. I don't want to…"

"Well, then fight!"

"There's nothing to fight. Nothing to…"

A Sylph of light. The air smelled of scorched pine and vanished lightning and then myrrh, the wine of stars. The scent hung in the air like a fine dust. As Qilaq's consciousness was smothered by darkness, a soft silhouette glowed against the gloom. The Moon. She was there, her soft skin of pale light with eyes as the still oceans against which all the stars could see themselves and rejoice in their splendor.

Azula had propped his head up in her lap. She was trying to smile, but just came off as cross. Qilaq looked up at her with his glazing eyes.

He reached up to touch her cheek and then all feeling left him and all the light faded.


	19. The Stars Came On

Authorial Note: Let it be known that I loath censorship. It bleeds stories of characterization and originality in a shockingly curt way. Or, it makes stories that dare to shun hemorrhage disappear, perhaps melted in a shower or thrown in an oven. Burned.

That being said, although this is the internet, I am reminded that this site does not allow pornography or "ultraviolence" and that can be a good thing. Like all things, censorship has a flipside: it forces the best of us to be more creative with our choreography and our language and tone. Sometimes, all it takes is a suggestion and a smart or imaginative person will fill in the blank spaces with luscious hues and curvaceous imagery all on their own.

So, there's sex in this chapter: creatively presented sex.

Enjoy, folks.

**Chapter 19: The Stars Came On**

I could kill him right now. He's helpless, not even conscious, and he's been that way for a whole day. He may never wake up again. _I could make sure of that. But no. I don't want to do that. He's still so useful, or is he? Perhaps I… no, I don't want to kill him. I want to…_

So, by the rocky riverside, Azula sat. The water was calm and clear. An opalescent fish circled in front of her, chasing its tail then giving up and swimming on. The sun shone its glistening reflection on the ever flowing surface. There was her reflection, rippling. She reflected on what she had done, become. She reflected on herself.

The Firebender's face twisted up and she swiped a flame against the river's surface with a scream. When the fire and steam dispersed, the fish was gone.

The silken black veil of night was settling over the mountain tops. Soon it would be dark. How would she keep him alive? He can't eat, can't swallow whiles he's out. All he can do is be still on the cave floor, like a breathing corpse. Maybe I could just let him die. If I do nothing, it's not like I'm actually killing him. He's just dying. It's really the fault of whoever shot that dart and poisoned him. That mercenary. Yes, he's to blame.

_HaHAhaha, what kind of logic is that? I let him die then I've killed him. I can't let him die knowing that he can easily be saved by my hand. He needs to teach me. He's still useful, even if, at the moment, he's about as active as a tomato-carrot. Perhaps I should just kill him. What use is an educated vegetable? If he can't fulfill his purpose, he deserves nothing less than death. Oh, was I not driven, I would be the same: a listless husk, fleeing to maintain an empty life among destitute peons. One of them._

_Aoh_… "Thank that man for my soul and sanity."

Heat. Qilaq could feel warmth in him. Life. Warmth on him. Heat. There was a fire. Fire was close to his skin. On the fringes of his feeling: heat! His eyes would have snapped open, but something was wrong. His muscles weren't cooperating. Even his eyelids felt far away, disconnected. His mind screamed at his body, which just responded with a mild disinterest. His muscles felt warm. Heat!

How could he feel heat? Spirits didn't feel heat. Actually, he couldn't know that for a fact, though he had always assumed that the loss of the body meant the loss of the senses. Were his energies not dispersed to mingle with the dusty light of the universe? No. He was bound, trapped, his essence… conscious. He awoke.

Through sheer force of will, he tilted his head an imperceptible amount, but it was just enough to bring the fire into view. There was a campfire crackling next to him. He was in the cave. He was alive! He tried to say, "I can't be that lucky," but his mouth wouldn't form the words. "How?" was his first thought, then, just above the wavering top of the campfire, where the light and form of the flame disappeared into thin air, he saw Azula, hugging her knees to her chest with her head buried, sitting against the opposite wall of the cave. He could hear her mumbling something. It was soft and indistinct, muffled by her body.

This wasn't right. Maybe he was locked in some celestial punishment. That would explain why he couldn't move, why his fluid soul was still stuck in the ruts of physical form. Or maybe he was alive. That would explain the heat, though it didn't seem to be coming from the fire. It was just his body reacting to something. Yep, it wasn't a deadly poison. Moon hung heavens, it felt like a killer poison: something he didn't really have experience with. He surmised that he would only ever find out what a killer poison felt like once, and then it would be a moot experience. It was for the best. He had thought for so long that he was ready for death, but, when the moment came, he realized just how desperately he wanted to live. It would be better if he were dead, but it was too horrifying.

Yep, paralysis. Some venom? How long had he been out? Why wasn't Azula moving? Qilaq lay still for hours, slowly moving the energies through his body, trying to regain feeling and control over his muscles. Even with all his chakras open, he still could barely move. All his nerves were dumb. Through sheer force of will he could move again, but his limbs still felt boneless and his skin had no feeling. The stone against which he lay may as well have been leagues away.

He sat up and leaned against the wall. Azula stirred and looked up at him. Her eyes were covered with spidery red veins, like crimson lightning bolts striking her golden iris. Has she been crying or just not slept?

Her words were quiet, almost mournful, but they maintained an almost regal authority. "You said, before, that you fought demons. Well, what about inner demons?"

Qilaq, the Shaman's son, looked down at the burning tinder between them, considering how he would go about this. It had been a while since he had fought Demons. Then again, what are men but chariots of wrath, by demons driven? He managed a smile and, with a deliberate tempo, spoke words he hadn't spoken since the Great War.

"Firstly, there is no such thing as an 'outer' Demon. Those are called monsters or beasts. Secondly, you don't 'fight' Demons. You can try, but it's like fighting the tide. It destroys you or the person whose Demon you're fighting."

"Demons are as much a part of human existence as questioning, as thinking. They come from the trans-human sphere of universal judgment. It is the blazing, red realm just above the territory of the soul. The proper term for this place isn't actually 'judgment,' but _adjustment. _This is where the universe balances itself out and, as I told you before, everything is connected, so when the universe is balancing itself, you're balancing yourself. That's what Demons are for."

"Demons are the visible crystallization of our suppressed aspects, feelings or natures. If you, say, suppress a memory of a childhood trauma about a spider bite that almost killed you, you'll develop a fear of spiders; if you constantly go after men or women who are unavailable or unattainable, you develop a form of loneliness, a depression; if you deny yourself the simple or carnal pleasures of life, you see the world as a filthy, horrid place and you cut yourself off from people; etcetera."

"All of these Demons present themselves to us in different ways. Most of the time they take a familiar form, something we despise or fear, but it's important to recognize that that form is only a projection of your perception. If you treat a Demon with fear and think it monstrous, then it will be a fearsome monster. However, if you treat the Demon with humanity, it will appear as human."

"And what if it doesn't take form?" Azula said. "What if it's just a voice?"

"That means… Moon help me to remember…" despite not being able to feel it, he scratched vacantly at the black stubble that was bristling from his hard chin. He gave Azula a knowing look. She was troubled. Why else would she be talking about disembodied demonic voices? He hoped she was ready for what he was about to start to do to her. "Your demon has a form. It can't not."

"I never said that I had a demon," said Azula defensively. "I was just curious."

"Curious if the shaman's son could exorcise your Demon for you?" Azula stood up and started to storm off into the night. She stopped at the precipice of the dark. The firelight behind her illuminated the cave well, but the contrast caused the outside world to appear as nothing but a deep, unending blackness.

"It has a form," the shaman's son went on, "but you're just not willing to accept it. The most terrifying thing you can imagine is not otherworldly or hideous. The true horror is what is intimately familiar. That is a true Demon. It's you, isn't it?" Azula took a step into the dark. "That's right, run, they always run. What, you think I can't follow you?" He struggled to his feet, his legs were like kinked rubber columns. He braced himself against the wall of the cave, his form limp and hunched.

"Stay away!" Azula screamed.

"You think the Demon can't follow you? You think it will stay away? It won't. It will plague you until it achieves balance, even if that balance is your eradication. Escape is impossible, because you can't escape yourself. Did it tell you that or something like that?"

She started. "Yes," she said breathlessly. "It said something like that, about being everywhere I was. It said 'I'm the only one I can truly listen to.'"

"Demons cannot lie, Azula. They are adjustment, balance. Lies are in direct violation of balance. Only truth tilts the scale even. Of course, since humans lie, and lie quite frequently, the Demons make up for it with the fearsome truth, the blade of absolution. Listen to the Demon, but…"

"Are you crazy? It want's me to siege the Fire Nation and kill my brother. I-I don't want… I mean I used to want that, but now…"

"…But don't let it lead you. One problem with Demons is that they choose the quickest, the sharpest path to achieving balance and that often means a complete leveling of the will, and the body, as a result. People make the mistake of giving in to their Demons, thinking they will be better for it, be happier, stronger, but decisions like that just stampede too far in the other direction. Our bodies and minds can't handle the shift. Sometimes even our souls can't handle it."

"Then what, Qilaq?" she broke, almost crying. _Yes, then what? What do I do about myself? _"What do I do about myself?"

"Calm down, first. You see the Demon as you and you accept it. It's a bitter taste, caustic to swallow, but you have to realize that it's part of you."

_Uhn… Right. You know, I think he may be crazier than me. Yes, yes… _"And let it-"

"Only a _part_ of you! It is not the whole of you. It's regret or fear, fear of change, uncertainty. It is the future and the past, their specters haunting your present. They are real and they must be acknowledged and accepted. _Acceptance_. Not passive reception, but peril fraught acceptance is the way to balance. Accept the atrocities that you have committed and the insane, perhaps even evil intentions you possess and let that part of you meet the good, because there is good in everyone. None of it is false. Even insincere kindness is kindness. Even if it's stupid, like when you defended that boy from his bully or when you protected Nobu and Aimi from that mob. Whatever your motivations, that was good. See those things in you, the good and the evil, and the Demon will dissolve, distill, and all that will be left is you."

_Obviously. _"And that's why I can't dissolve it! It's me! It's who I am!"

"Yes, it is you. You see? You're evil and conniving and glib and righteous and good and beautiful all at once."

_I…?_

"Don't doubt it. It tells you what a knockout you are, I'm sure. It tells you that any man would… slice a digit to have you."

_Of course they would. So why haven't you yet? _"It…"

"No, that's you, not 'it.' You're saying that. You think that, for better or for worse. And, let me tell you Azula, as a representative for all the male presence in the universe, you are certainly one of the hottest things ever to grace the face of this earth." He laughed slightly. "It's true. Like I said, Demon's don't lie. Don't doubt that. Accept it and just let it be."

"_No!" _she screamed in all her voices. The fire in the cave exploded into an inferno and scorched the granite roof black and singed Qilaq's burnished skin. He fell to the floor of the cave and knew he was hurt. Lucky for him, he couldn't feel the pain. He couldn't feel anything.

The blazed dissipated and the intense gold light gave up, letting everything go black.

* * *

Azula had vanished.

There was nothing.

Void.

Herself with _herself_.

Forever.

Then,

Above,

One at a time,

The stars came on.

_The stars came on._

"_The stars came on_."

* * *

Qilaq really wished that his body had stayed numb. Even the modicum of sense he had was painful. He reached for the back of his head and stuck is fingers into his dreads. There was no blood, thankfully. Still, his head was pounding. His burns stung, despite them not being that deep. He had thick skin and was no stranger to being burned. Fighting Firebenders all his life had given him that.

"Firebenders," he said with a chuckle. "All my life, Firebenders and fire. It's gonna be a long time before I can get that girl even remotely close to sane. I don't even know if I can…"

A shadow appeared against the now perceptible glow of the nightscape. Qilaq propped himself up on his elbows to get a better look at the specter. If it's the mercenary I'll…

It was Azula. Her shoulders were down and her arms were slack at her sides. Her black tresses draped over her cheeks and framed a look that Qilaq could just make out, yet he couldn't make it out. It was a tilted look, like a predator's glare before it pounced.

The Waterbender attempted to draw himself up but one of his arms gave out and he collapsed onto his back with a hollow thud. He lifted his head back up and saw her staring at him with the same look. She was blocking the only way out. She stepped towards him, slowly, her bare feet making no sound against the solid stone ground.

Azula let out a breathy hiss and half her mouth drew up into a grin. Her sharp, slender fingers raised and untied the belt of her dark-blue robe, pulled it apart and let it fall to the ground. Her pants followed. She loomed over the prone Qilaq, who was dumbstruck by the supple alabaster form of the half-naked woman. She straddled him and nearly fell into his face as though she meant to devour his tongue.

After the deep, violent kiss, Azula drew back. Qilaq's mouth remained open from the shock. "Uh, really?" he questioned. "I don't th…"

"Shut up and do me," she quietly commanded.

"Yes, ma'am." Qilaq didn't need to be told twice.

Muladhara

Here, the fire serpent sleeps. It stirs and rises, slithering from earthly consciousness towards the holy vessel.

Svadishthana

Here, the three finger point. The limitless depths of warmth where language has no word and mind has no thought but dream-blinded ecstasy.

Manipura

Here, the boiling lake of passion. Hot desire so strong, so firm, eternal and willful spirits want nothing more than to break each other against one another.

Anahata

Here, sipping from the cup of bottomless compassion. Beating beneath the breast is the mournful rejoice of all that lets tears like sap from trees and spins the sun gold soul.

Visuddha

Here, the echo of voices. The flicking tongue that laps from the air music, vision, knowledge, truth and the void where all this sacred information leaks through the cracks into the chasm.

Ajna

Here, the height, the pinnacle of principle. The two: phallus and cornucopia. Both titanic forces writhe and jostle with each other, so separate, but of each other: two parts destined to be together. The red beast and the harlot of innumerable tongues are one.

Sahasrana

Here, crowned upon all of existence, beyond being real. It is not yet being, the white effulgence of diamond clarity in all, where the stroke and rot of time dissolves, for nothing here is unmade. Nothing in the universe is unmade. All the Truth of existence is moaned in creation and it happens eternally in an instant.

* * *

Azula rolled over and almost leapt to her feet when her naked breast touched the cold stone of the cave floor. Despite being jarred awake, she felt more at peace, more satisfied than she had ever felt in her life. It was an inexplicable feeling of contentment. What's more, she knew the demon was gone. No, not gone, but just contented. At peace. Harmonious. The only voices that bombarded her now were those of the waking birds and the babble of the river outside. She covered herself and noticed something was a miss. It was Qilaq. He was a miss. He was gone, though his robes remained. Azula noticed that the once ocean blue sleeve had been seared completely black up to the shoulder and half burned away. Actually, the whole left side of the clothing was charred

She wrapped her robe around her, not bothering with her other garments, and exited into the rising morning light. Her brow furrowed with confusion at what she saw. The swarthy Qilaq stood stark naked at the river's edge. Though she knew his body intimately now, this was the first time she had seen him nude in the light of day. She thought it odd how a soldier of such seeming proficiency and experience hadn't amassed any serious scars on his coffee colored body. But it looked as though he would have a scar now. His left arm, from the wrist up, was already scabbed russet, as were patches on his shoulder, neck, and the side of his face. Half the hair on his left side was burned away, too. It looked a little funny, but Azula wasn't laughing. It was her doing. The cave fire had surged with her rage, her fear, and marred Qilaq.

Her spirits picked up at the thought that the Waterbender had healing abilities, so he could probably repair the damage. That was probably why he didn't have any scars. Any visible scars.

As she moved to approach and noticed that the surface of the river directly in front of him was frothing ever so slightly.

"Qilaq?" ventured Azula, wiping a stray strand of hair out of her eye. The river seemed to jump an inch out of its bed at the sound of her voice.

"Alright, Azula," started the Waterbender. "I think it's time I told you a story."


	20. A Child of War

Some people are more forgiving than others. Test your compassion and learn what it is to be…

**Chapter 20: A Child of War**

The frigid trace of night's touch still lingered on the ground, though the new sun's rays had begun to burn it away. Azula felt the shifting temperatures beneath her, rising up and into her loosely tied, Water Tribe robe.

Her initial reaction to Qilaq's prefacing of story time was mild exasperation, but the subtle severity in his tone gave her pause. She never really felt like she was getting any truth out of him, but perhaps now he would be genuine for her. Her attention was rapt.

"It was during the Siege of Ba Sing Se. I was sixteen, I think. Yep, must've been. Nuan threw me a party for my seventeenth a few months later. I don't know how she found… well, anyway, I was a young man on the front lines. My dad commanded the unit. We had two elder Waterbenders with us, twice as old as my dad; the rest of them were Earthbenders: Nuan and five others who had been fighting for… twenty years, if you added up all their time on the front. Those years were branded onto them," said Qilaq with a vague gesture at his newly burnt flesh. "They were something else, those five. Hadn't worked with them for more than a week, but we were as glad to have them."

"The Fire Nation had been hammering at the gates for almost a year and a half. We were actually on the wall when it happened. I was with my dad and Lim and Nuan and the other seven were further down in another tower to the south. The world quaked like the back of some shivering beast. A peal of thunder rang in all our heads, ringing our hearing from our ears. I couldn't see anything at first, then a choking cloud of smoke and dust rose up to the south. After that, we had to abandon the outer defenses and retreat through the agrarian flats to the inner wall."

"We regrouped. The others were at ground zero when it happened. The wall caved right under them. Only three of them had survived. The two of the Earthbenders, Mu and… Moon forgive me for forgetting his name… they were crushed. So were Naartock and Sos - the older Waterbenders, in case the names didn't make it obvious. It was a terrible defeat, one we could never have prevented."

"Months later the Fire Nation was still beating at our front door. They'd burned the farmlands so the city had to dip into its food stores. We wouldn't run out anytime soon, but the supply wasn't limitless. It was an ever present concern for the others while my dad and I worried about the pestilence that was starting to spread through the ranks. It wasn't anything that could be healed by our hands. It was resignation; they were losing their will to fight, most of them."

"Not us, though. Nuan grew hopeless, but my father, Tai, Rushi, Da Jian, and I coped with it. We coped with it with anger and merciless ferocity. My dad and I pulled the organs out of our slain foes and hurled their entrails at their comrades. We mingled blood and water and summoned sanguine showers over the ranks of the armored Fire Nation divisions. We drenched the farmlands turned battlefields: mud and blood and unnumbered tears of terror and pain. Tai encouraged the other Earthbenders to hang the corpses of Fire Nation soldiers on pinnacles of stone that towered above the earth. All this unsettled both sides and helped stem the tide of Fire Nation troops that poured in everyday, but it wasn't enough. They were as a great crimson ocean, a red tide that lapped against our defenses, unending, unyielding. Our great stone city would soon be washed away."

"One day, thinking we would concentrate on the bulk of their force, a company of enemy soldiers attempted to bore through the far north wall and perhaps flank us from inside the lower ring. It was clever, but we killed them. It was strange. We had a platoon with us and at the start of the battle it looked as though we would have to retreat, but we didn't and I, my dad, and Tai and company slaughtered the lot of them. At the end of the battle, when we went around finishing off the wounded, we came across one of the soldiers. It was a woman, a young woman. We didn't think women were allowed to be soldiers, much less soldiers on the front. She kept saying, 'I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be here.' She must have snuck to the front, not an unheard of stunt. She was right. She shouldn't have been there."

"Tai was the first. The others… we encouraged it, cheered him on. Then Rushi. Then Da Jian. And then I raped her, too."

"My dad stood guard and hoped that the commanders, all the commanders, were watching with their spyglasses, off at their field desks with pictures of their families set for them to look down at. Set so they could curse what they were doing, curse themselves for sending those ignorant youths into the gnashing jaws of the war machine."

Qilaq turned, his cobalt gaze locked on Azula's fright strangled pupils, and uttered his next words with a strained levity and a melancholy mote. "You look just like her, Azula."

All the color in her already pale complexion washed away like dust under a waterfall. Her pupils constricted to black pinpoints. Even the hum of the river seemed muted as the words rang in her mind. It was all she could do to stay upright, allowing the knowledge to concuss within her mind as ten thousand explosions from ten thousand bolts of lightning.

It could easily be another lie: another convoluted fiction. He was never honest with her. He was never honest with anybody, as far as she could tell. He just told stories. He even started out with "let me tell you a story."

She wanted it to be a lie. When images of the previous night's passion flashed across her mind she desperately wanted it to be a lie.

Qilaq flinched as her hand drew back and ignited. The Firebender didn't strike, though. She let the flame dissipate and she lowered her hand. The darker part of her felt… outraged. Disgusted. _Pissed!_ She felt she had to defend herself somehow. She felt defiled down to her marrow. She felt betrayed and, for some reason, that feeling seared at her innards the hottest.

All those feelings roiled within her, but they were distant, like the sound of the nearby waterfall crashing into the river below. She remained regal, composed, and, though she may have looked horrified by the being before her, calm.

She did manage one word. It encapsulated everything she felt and saw in him so succinctly it, in and of itself, was horrifying.

"Monster."

Qilaq drew up his artful smile as best he could manage, with his mind as conflicted as it was, and responded. "By Demons driven, Azula."

She said nothing more, did nothing more. Her feet merely carried her back into the shelter of the cave and she let the still night-cold shade soothe her. Qilaq, himself, didn't do much more. After standing naked on the shore for a while, he finally decided to wade out into the river and float himself against the caress of the gentle current. The water felt like sharp glass against his still tender burn and he slowly opened up the floodgates within his own body, letting his chi bring his dead flesh back to life.

His healing was not as effective as if he had done it right after he was burned, but he was… occupied last night and it didn't hurt much, anyway. He was aware of sensation, but the poison in his veins still dulled his feeling.

When the sun reached its zenith and Azula's Firebending energies peaked in tandem, she reluctantly dressed in the garb of that heinous man and walked out of the cave and into the woods. She walked for about a mile before Qilaq caught up with her.

"And where are you going," he asked with a genuine sounding humor. Azula stopped, but said nothing. "You're going the wrong way."

"You don't even know where I'm going?" she said darkly.

"Well, if you're looking to trudge deeper into the wilderness you're on the right track, but if you're looking for civilization…"

She turned slowly to glare at Qilaq. Thankfully, he was dressed. His robes were minus their sleeves now, likely in the interest of symmetry, though the lower left side of his garment still bore the singe marks from last night. Also, he appeared to be sopping from his soak, the river glazing the Waterbender's skin like lustrous, clear syrup. He shined in the light of the noonday sun.

Qilaq laughed once. "Your gaze seems to tell me…"

"Piss off," Azula finished for him.

"I was going to say 'get lost' but that's the gist."

"Well then, where am I to go?"

"Depends on what you want."

"Well, _you_ 'lost' would be an improvement," she jabbed.

"Ah, but I'm not the one who's 'lost.' I know exactly where I am. Well, you may not want it, but I am still here to help."

"Help? Oh, you've been plenty of help to me."

"Yes. Yes I have and I'm still…"

"Enough!" Qilaq could feel her anger radiating as heat, even through his watery sheen. The two of them glared at each other for an uncomfortably long time, before Azula finally broke. "I'm going back to the Fire Nation. I'm going home."

"Why?" he chuckled, baffled. "It's not much of a home when everyone there wants you jailed or broken or dead."

"I'm going to free my father."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"And you'd want to free him beca-"

"Don't. I know your opinion of him. You made yourself very clear, but I don't care what you think. I'm going to free my father from the torture of a chained life and we're going to get away from all this. We're going to get away from all those people that hate us and want us jailed or broken or dead. Now get me out of this forest or I swear I'll scorch you to ashes!"

Qilaq struggled to hold a mad cackle within his throat, though he couldn't keep from grinning, which just infuriated Azula all the more.

"Why?" she steamed.

"Please clarify the 'why.'"

"Don't be a smart-ass! You know what 'why.'"

Qilaq sighed. "Because I thought I should probably be honest with you now."

"What, you thought I'd appreciate the truth? Truth, when I've known you've been lying to me ever since we met? Any other bombs you wish to drop while you're at it? Anything else you want to _enlighten_ me with?"

"No," he said partially annoyed by her tone.

"How do I even know this is the truth? You could be lying about this whole rape thing just to test me, just to get at me."

"Yes, because it makes so much sense for me to come up with such a violent story to get under your _thick_ skin," he patronized sarcastically. Azula just growled, the aura of heat around her intensifying. "If it makes you feel any better, consider it a lie."

"But it's not, is it?"

"Yep."

"You are _vile_," she said, punctuating every word.

The swarthy man chuckled softly.

Azula had had enough. She spun on a heel and marched off into the forest.

"Civilization is this way," Qilaq said, pointing in the opposite direction that the Firebender was storming. She didn't have to look to know she was going the wrong way. As much as it pained her, she still needed Qilaq. She needed him to get out of the woods. She turned and started off in the right direction. He walked along side her, but gave her a wide birth.

Qilaq's route going into the forest was a complex snarl of loops and turns. He thought it would throw off anyone tracking Azula and him. The numbness in his muscles reminded him how wrong he was. Regardless, this meant that the return hike to Ba Sing Se only took a few days.

However, as they neared their destination, the sky opened up and a torrent rained down on the two travelers. Azula despised the rain and, though the canopy cover was thick, huge droplets still managed to pelt her intermittently. Soon she was damp and she hated being damp, so she took cover near the trunk of a nearby pine and waited for the downpour to pass or at least lighten up.

Qilaq just let himself get soaked. Azula expected that of a Waterbender. They hadn't spoken since they left, but Qilaq shattered that silence.

"To be honest, I'm surprised, astonished by how quick you were to…" and he made a spinning motion in her direction with his leathery hand.

"Snap?" Azula snapped.

"Well, I was going to say 'change,' but…"

Her gaze angrily needled at Qilaq. He completely understood, though, for the first time since they met, he was worried about her opinion of him. It baffled him and he knew she would probably never trust him again, not that she ever seemed to fully trust him. _He_ wouldn't trust him, were he in her or anybody else's position, especially knowing how he really is.

"I don't know if you're better or not, if you've laid your Demons to rest, but it's good to see you acting… like your old self."

"If you only knew," Azula chuckled. Whether it was the exorcism or the horrified disgust at her traveling companion, she certainly wasn't concerned with _her_ demons anymore. Then she got to thinking about what exactly had happened that night, before she had thrust herself upon him. It was… something.

"What _did_ you do to me?" she asked sincerely, though it still came out coarse and dark. Her mind wouldn't let her throat sound at him any other way.

Qilaq looked at her and then looked back up into the rain, concentrating on the feeling of droplets bursting on his skin. He could barely feel it, the damp or the cold or the pitter-patter of the rain. He felt numb and empty.

"The Shaman doesn't do anything literally spiritual," he said. "At best, he's a trickster. The words and rituals themselves hold no power. There's nothing intrinsically magical in a bunch of sounds or a bunch of symbols. All the magic, all the change occurs on the receiving end. It's true, I did give you an emotional push by increasing your awareness, but, like I said, the true power, the true change, happens because of _your will_. Your willingness to accept that part of yourself is what allowed you to move beyond your self-inflicted torment. You could have just as easily done nothing or listened to the voice and done something terrible, destroyed yourself. But you didn't."

"If you learn nothing else, Azula, know that all the magic is in us. It is us. It's nothing elemental. It's everything fundamental."

"That's just like saying it doesn't exist, that it's all just an illusion, a figment."

"Nah, that's nihilistic-speak. Everything is real. Even illusions are real. Those stories, fictions that my dad told me and I told you, they all affect us, the elements, the wars, the nations, the bending, the demons, they are all shaping us, always, but the shape it creates is entirely up to us. We are the change, Azula."

For an instant, she forgot her malice and felt a tingle ripple through her body. It was the briefest moment of forgiveness, but she forced herself to remember what he had done to that girl and she hated him again, though there was something else there, now. Another feeling blanketing her hate. It was pity. It made her feel wretched and so she threw away that feeling as well.

"Well, let's get going," Qilaq said.

"I'm not going anywhere in this rain."

"I can see that." The Waterbender made an exaggerated, two handed beckoning gesture at her and the water dampening her floated out of her robes and hair. Qilaq let the water drop, and then put his palm toward the sky. The rain started to repel just above him as though contacting a curved sheet of lusterless glass.

"Come on," he beckoned, "let's go." Azula stepped out from under her cover and the raindrops were deflected above her, too.

The two of them continued on and before they knew it they were walking through the slums of Ba Sing Se's lower ring once again. They passed by Nuan's smithy. Her name on the sign had been painted over with black ink. Qilaq feared the worst, though he took solace in the knowledge that Nuan could handle herself.

"It's alright," he said, partially to himself. "Anyway, if we want to get to the Fire Nation, we shouldn't linger. I know a guy back home or, rather, near the compound. He does a lot of shipping over seas. He should be able to get us a ride."

"And now you're helping me?" said Azula.

"I've always been helping you, ever since we met.

"I don't want your help."

"A more obvious statement there never was, but you know you'll need it, especially for the craziness you're planning. I had a dad once, too, and, considering the subject, I think what you're trying to do is probably the noblest thing anyone's ever considered. Crazy, but noble. Who knows? Maybe your dad's changed, just like you. I assume you were banking on that. So you don't trust me."

"Truer words were never spoken," Azula laughed humorlessly.

"Well then," he said, smiling at her, "just think of all this as taking advantage of me."

A cold shudder ran up the woman's spine and she started off towards the transit station, smiling Qilaq in tow. They had been very lucky with getting vacant train cars. Nobody seemed to be going where they were going. Either that, or the smell the two of them produced just repelled everyone. Azula thought it the latter. The conveyance sped out of the city and familiar vistas rushed by once again, this time in the opposite direction.

"Just like old times," Qilaq chuckled mildly. "Old times being a couple weeks ago." He chuckled again as if it made it funnier. Just like old times, Azula had her gaze averted, arms crossed, and she wasn't laughing.

"Look, A…" he stopped himself announcing her identity in public.

"Do you feel guilty about what you did," she preempted, "or are you even capable of guilt anymore?"

"I… try not to dwell. But, obviously it's plaguing me. Why else would I save you?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe for something logical. Maybe out of some genuine compassion," she chortled in a singsong voice and then brought her tone back down to its dark default. "At least selling me out to Long Feng made sense."

"I would be rich, had I done that," he sighed with an almost regretful air. The Firebender shot a piercing glare at him, though he remained impervious with his artful grin. "I don't pretend to make sense, Azula. Go ahead and think me insane or callous or whatever. It doesn't bother me."

Now Azula cracked a smile: a wicked smile, one like the many that used to grace her face in the days when she was the prodigious and sadistic warrior princess of her Nation. "I will say this for you, Qilaq: you are quite the liar." Her subtle jab didn't have the desired effect, though. In fact, his look almost mirrored hers now. She scowled and growled and turned away.

The Waterbender's own amusedly wicked gaze endured for a bit then he lifted his feet up onto the bench and lay down with a laugh. He didn't want to go to sleep, though, so the smooth rock of the car ceiling came under his careful scrutiny: the pits, the cracks, the imperfections.


	21. I Know Enough of Hate

Authorial Note: You're still here? Cool. So now we saunter into Act Five. The end of Azula's dramatic adventure draws near.

Azula and Qilaq are back where they started and are met by a furious familiar face, while Toph and Sokka set foot on Fire Nation soil for the first time in years.

**Chapter 21: I Know Enough of Hate**

The clay-dusted town didn't have a name, as far as Azula knew. Terracotta pots squatted against the front of every house they passed. She hadn't noticed quite a few things on her first hurried pass through this town where she was first granted amnesty. But there was something about the short buildings and the leaning planks of cedar and the clothes lines strung above the streets covered in asparagus green shirts and tanned undergarments. The whole community was resting near the first and last thing her father had decimated during his brief time as the self-evinced Phoenix King. That was Azula's legacy, but the visible scars from all that destruction had vanished. From that scorched land, Wulong forest had been resurrected. Now, it shaded the short buildings and the unknown people within them.

"Here," Qilaq's flat voice started, breaking Azula from her observant musings. The burns on his face had vanished, say for a mild discoloration beneath the corner of his hard jaw. "This is the place." It was a very square building with myriad-color drapes over two square windows separated by a square door that looked made to push fully loaded carts though. The store front was obscured behind a vibrant array of clothes hung on racks and lines that crisscrossed the wall: olive tunics, tawny pants hemmed with gold thread, woolen robes as blue as a glass-calm sea, even pink frocks that caught Azula's eye and made her think of her younger days with younger friends and enemy's. There was also some red and black.

The two passed through the grass-green scrim hung over the unusually wide doorway and into a swamp of pastel cloth in all shapes and sizes trimmed with all manner of accessories from faux-precious gems to ornate chains of pressed pyrite.

A high male voice creaked in greeting. "Hello there, my friends. How may I hel…lo Qilaq. How are you?" The store owner passed through several pairs of pants to lock his grip around his friend's dark forearm.

The Waterbender returned the gesture happily. "I'm doing fine."

"By your patron deities, man, you look terrible. You really need to come by more often to refurbish your wardrobe. Are these scorch marks?"

"Yes, I was too close to a campfire. I nearly burned in my sleep."

"So you just got back from camping, I see. And your lovely lady friend's name?" He said with a droll pleasantry and bow of his neatly cropped head.

"Shila," said Azula, remembering herself.

"A pleasure, Shila. I'm-"

"Oi!" a deep feminine voice yelled from the back of the store, the volume sucked up by the suffocating closeness and quantity of the textile merchandise.

"Yes, dear lotus," the man responded immediately. "We have customers."

"We do?" There was a moment of muffled motion and then a staunch woman parted some shirts hanging on a rack and reached them. "Oh, Qilaq. You haven't been by in ages… and it shows."

"Yes, dear, I told him how terrible he looks. Sleeping with fire apparently."

"Ah, that'll do it."

"Shila, this is my wife, He," said the man pulling a wayward thread from his wife's short-sleeved, green shirt.

"Stop that," she said, slapping her husband's intrusive hand away and then shallowly bowing to Azula. "Charmed, deary. So, you need a new robe, Qilaq."

"I've got him, my lotus. Perhaps you can show Shila around and see if there's anything she may like to snatch up."

"I don't have any money… on me," Azula interjected.

"Oh, that's alright. I'm sure Qilaq will cover you. Anyway, his credit's good here. And, if he doesn't pay, he's right down the street for us to go and beat it out of him," said He with a powerful, yet still womanly laugh. The thinly disguised Azula wasn't sure if the mannish woman was joking or not. "Sorry for the mess. We're about to send a big shipment out and everything's rather full at the moment. Bright side is we have quite a selection."

The two women struggled to the feminine shaded side of the store and stopped in front of a mirror. Azula got her first clear and unflinching look at herself in weeks, though it may as well have been years. A stranger stared back at her from the mirror world. Azula was a woman, now, that much was clear. All of her springy youth had been rung from her like water from a dishrag. Her raven hair had grown past her shoulders and was already showing the subtlest glints of gray woven into its flowing jet mass. She still had her claws, but they were cracked and dirty things that jutted from her spindly fingertips. Her mother's thin features had begun to haunt her visage. Her father's golden gaze glinted slightly in her own pale eyes. They were both in her.

"Well," He finally said, holding her chin as she examined Azula like a project. "I think your hair could go up. Let's see…" the tailor ran her surprisingly feminine hands through Azula's tresses and tied her hair up in a knot in the back with a red tie, letting two lengths of hair on either side of her face hang down, just like she used to wear her hair when she was a princess.

"No," said He. "Makes you look too boyish. You need to let it hang, but the ends should be all tied, like this. There. Now, you definitely need some new clothes." The Firebender's robes were thoroughly soiled and worn with use, even more than they had been when she received them as hand-me-downs. The dark-blue was pale and faded like the color of sunbathed ice. You don't strike me as a winter, though the blue does work with your hair. Hmmm… Not pink. Certainly not pink. Actually, burgundy would look good. Lava would be fetching. I've got it," the tailor said with a snap of her fingers. "Lust."

"Just get me something black and practical," Azula flashed, turning away from her reflected self.

"Black, huh?" He said, slightly taken aback. "Well, nothing more practical than black. Two minutes, miss," and the tailor woman retreated into the forest of fabric. She returned after a moment with a simple three piece ensemble that looked like it was designed for an assassin. Azula wasn't sure if it was some kind of joke, but the idea humored her enough that she tried it on and it was very comfortable. She left Qilaq's funky had-me-downs but remembered to exhume her golden flame brooch from within the robe.

Qilaq was waiting at the front exit in robes exactly like his old ones, but freshly pressed and of a much richer cobalt hue, like his eyes.

The male tailor looked rather proud of himself. "All paid up and set up. You two look ready to take on the world. Remember, Qilaq, they're coming by at noon. Help move the goods if you want. I know they'd appreciate it. Anyway, I'll see you later. Oh and Shila, by the way," he took Azula's hand delicately in his, "my name, it's Tai." As soon as the words echoed once against her thoughts, Azula jerked her claw from his.

He slapped her husband in the back of his neatly coifed skull. "There. Now, you've offended her. I told you not to touch people. Not everybody likes to be touched."

"You don't mind it when I touch you," he responded, rubbing the spot where she had struck him.

"Well, I'm your wife."

Azula was already out of the shop and Qilaq was on his way out. "Bye, Tai," the swarthy Waterbender said with a smile. Tai laughed and waved as his friend disappeared behind the curtain.

It took every flake and follicle of restraint in Azula's being to keep from breaking that man's legs and setting the whole building up in flames for his wife to watch. Then she had a mild epiphany. She had become very good at controlling her baser emotions once again. No, better than before. She wasn't maniacally indifferent to violence anymore. Now, she abhorred it and felt a righteous fury, but she kept in check. Once again, she was the very Venus of composure and it gave her a mild solace.

"I thought you said he was scarred?"

"I said he has scars. I didn't say you could see them. She's gonna punch me. I can see it coming."

"Oh, you have no idea how many times the urge has welled… what?" Azula looked and realized that the compound where she and Qilaq first had come, after he led her out of the woods, was right down the street. And there, standing stone still in front of the building was Nuan.

The street was dead silent. In the morning light, Azula saw something gleam in the far off smith's hands. There was the sound of metal creasing, grinding against itself. Nuan was wearing her metal gloves. She walked slowly down the street toward them. Her expression came into view. It was a tidal cliff of a look, holding back a sea of intensity.

"Hello, Nuan," Qilaq said happily, but with a wicked glare.

"Hi."

The women's eyes were locked.

"Nuan," Azula greeted politely. She was almost happy to see the plucky metal worker from Ba Sing Se, though she seemed far less plucky now. Azula feared the worst.

Nuan's next word cemented the fugitive Firebender's fears.

"Azula."

"Wait here for a sec, please," Qilaq said to Azula before he calmly ushered Nuan back to the house down the road.

Azula didn't say anything. All she did is keep her eyes locked with the green, gold-speckled eyes of Nuan, who walked backward a couple steps to keep her gaze on the Phoenix Harlot. She then turned and she and Qilaq disappeared into the leaking compound of trees and greenery.

Maybe Nuan would kill me, Azula thought. Would she take the reward or would it just be an act of vengeance? Either way, it was logical. Her long, unmanicured nails scrapped lightly against an earthen wall as she lowered herself to lean against it.

But then there was Qilaq. He betrayed her and lied to her. Maybe Nuan would kill _him_. Azula didn't know how she felt about that. No. Nuan couldn't kill Qilaq - not even if she wanted to.

* * *

His home was as he left it. The verdant leafs and vines still spilled from their pots and the room still stank like the chapped underbelly of a ponderous beast of burden. A clutch of azure flowers were blooming in the corner, their petals slanting towards the dusted rays slanting through the front window.

The Metalbending smith sighed and flexed her brow before she looked at her old friend. "Honestly, Qilaq, _Shila_?"

"Hey, I thought it was clever. Why're you here? I saw your name crossed out on your shop sign."

"Really." Nuan didn't look surprised, though her stern face did take on a more sullen shade. "Well, I wouldn't know. After you left, Iroh and master Toph came by. They were looking for you two. I tried to cover by lying but master saw right through that."

"'Saw,' huh? Pretty good for a blind girl." Nuan ignored Qilaq's facetious remark. "You never were very good at lying," he added.

"I led them out into the middle of the woods and then, when I saw my chance, I ditched them and came out here to hide."

"So how is Lim? Was he happy to see you?"

"Yes, but when I told him about you and… her, he left to go hunt you down."

"Everyone seems to be doing that these da-"

The force from Nuan's slap knocked Qilaq straight to the ground. His head almost hit the hardwood floor before the rest of him.

"Ow," said the swarthy man carefully while he clutched and adjusted his jaw. He was actually happy for the perpetual numbness that had seized his nerves since being poisoned.

"You know what that was for?" asked Nuan, flexing her metal shod hand.

"Lying to you about Azula?" Qilaq said as he rose.

"No. That's for ruining everything I worked to achieve, for forcing me to lie to protect you and give up my home and my position… _and_ for lying about Azula!"

"Sounds like I got off easy."

"Damn right!"

"Why are you wearing those things?"

"Exercise, though now they're to make sure the point hits home."

"Home feels a little broken."

"Baby," Nuan snubbed. After an awkward silence, she let loose a growl. "What possessed you! The Phoenix Har-"

"Stop. Don't. You know what her name is, now. Use it."

"What are you doing with her?"

Qilaq suppressed the urge to burst with laughter. "Now? We're going back to the Fire Nation to spring her father."

"Spring her…" Nuan laughed and trailed off with disbelief. "Spring her father? Spring Ozai? Free Phoenix King Ozai?" The sound of dust shifting signaled an invisible stress on the stone walls and ceiling.

"A man of many names and titles, yep. By the by, this place isn't very soundly constructed. Could you maybe not level it?"

"Oh, don't worry. I'll be fine," she said as a minute trail of sand leaked from a crack in the ceiling.

"You'll always be fine, Nuan."

The Earthbender's furious gaze melted and she fell into a hysterical fit of laughter. It was all she could do to alleviate the stress of perplexed rage that quaked within her.

"Her father, Nuan. It's her dad. She's fighting for her family. At least, the ones that will still have her."

Nuan went serious once more. "You aren't stupid, Qilaq, though you've been doing a lot of stupid things, recently. She's not fighting for 'family.' She just wants to free her dad and start a rebellion and she's using _you_ to… break in and…"

There it was: Qilaq's artful smile.

Nuan didn't know how to feel. Qilaq was crazy, though not in the way she had originally thought. "You're really going to go there, with her."

"To get her dad. He doesn't deserve to be locked up, powerless, living out the rest of his days in a piss-stained cell."

"You're serious?"

"Oh, I'm dead serious."

"That… that's not funny."

"Aw, I thought it was pretty good."

Nuan considered things for a moment. "And you trust that's _her_ reason: free her father and not try and kill the current Fire Lord, stage a coup… trap you?"

"'Trust,' Nuan? _Me_? What does it matter, anyway?"

"You're a good person, Qilaq," Nuan quavered almost out of nowhere. "You plant trees and help things grow. You fought for our country against evil. You saved Lim. You saved me a bunch, too. You saved all of us at some point."

"No. I didn't save anybody."

"But you… Qilaq, it's over now…"

He chuckled and smiled at her from under raised eyebrows.

"Well, you _are_ a good person, at least."

"Such a terrible liar," he said to his friend who looked as though she was on the verge of tears. She rushed him and Qilaq tensed, bringing his arms up in defense only to be crushed in Nuan's vice-like embrace. She could have crumbled a boulder with her grip. Again, he was thankful for his numbness, but he wouldn't have cared either way. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her in kind.

"If you could do me a favor," he said with a hairline crack in his voice, "there's a little tree I planted a bit ago. Can you go see how it's doing and make sure it's okay?"

"Sure, iceman. You got it."

They let each other go and Qilaq left. Nuan silently listened to his footfalls diminish in the distance. She tried to stay optimistic, but it was hard. The swirls of lies about her had always made optimism hard. She couldn't tell what was true, what was right, and what was for the best. One thing she did know, though, was that she didn't want Qilaq to go, but he had. He was gone.

* * *

The well-muscled tribesman looked up at the high Fire Nation Sun with contempt. His bronze complexion and arctic constitution was not made for this stagnant, sizzling weather. He noticed that his fairer-skinned female companion had already left the dock and had fallen to her knees, almost kissing the sturdy platform where the land met the sea.

"Man, I hate boats," sighed the blind Earthbender as she tried to embrace the entire planet with her whole being. "And ships. And carts for that matter. Anything off the ground, really. I never thought I'd be so happy to be back on Fire Nation soil."

"This isn't really soil, per se," Sokka noted, stomping on the cement with his foot. "More like Fire Nation gravel, slurred with a few chemicals, smoothed down, and hardened into a walkway."

"Whatever smarty. It's solid and I can see on it."

"Whatever rocks your world. Hey, Katara!" he called to his sister as she approached from further down the dock.

"Sokka, I'm glad you're safe" she said as she hugged him gently. "Both of you." She embraced the young woman to Sokka's left who had just risen. "Toph, it's so good to see you again."

"Good to see you, too," said the young blind woman. It took Katara a second to process, but then she laughed.

Sokka slapped his forehead with his palm and raked it down his face. "Honestly, when are you gonna stop using that joke?"

"When it stops being funny," responded Toph. "So, where's Aang?"

"I don't know," Katara responded, her face now a morose mask. "The last time I saw him was when he talked with Zuko about reducing Ozai's sentence."

"What?" Sokka shrieked.

"Why?" inquired the young Earthbender with a furrow of her brow.

Katara explained. "Aang went to see him in jail. It was one of the first things he did here. Apparently, Ozai's changed… for the better. That's what Aang thinks, anyway."

"It's a lie," said Sokka as though he had already figured it all out.

"I don't think so. Aang seemed pretty adamant."

"This is Ozai we're talkin' about. There's a reason Aang bent his Firebending away: he was the driving force behind the whole War. Even without his bending, he's still a dangerous element."

"Zuko said something similar. He was almost yelling at Aang by the end, then Aang left, but Appa's still here, so he must still be here, somewhere."

"I don't care if Ozai finds a cure for pentapox. He is locked up and that's how he's gonna stay. End of story."

"Sokka, there is no such thing as 'pentapox.'"

"And if he found a cure for a fake disease it would be a miracle and we _still_ wouldn't let him out. Anyway, you're biased. You're just siding with your boyfriend." The browned

"Sokka!" she said, flushed with embarrassment, anger and an imperceptible dusk of regret.

"Oh, don't be embarrassed. We all saw it coming and we _all_ saw you smooching at Iroh's."

"I didn't," Toph amended.

Sokka groaned at his companion's milking of the humor in her condition. "Whatever, you felt it." The surprisingly sturdy woman let fly an unyielding sock at the taller man's shoulder. "Eheugh!" he groaned, trying to keep from falling over, adding a simple "ow" to punctuate his soreness.

"That was over four years ago," Katara said, the shadow of anger strong in her throat. "Aang left after that. If he was supposed to be my boyfriend, then he had a funny way of showing it."

"Long distance relationships: they're hard."

"Listen, Katara," Toph began, her voice deepened with growth and age. "I don't know why you're being so defensive. You've got the heart of the Avatar. If I had something that precious, I wouldn't want for or complain about anything in the world."

Katara was impressed to hear Toph speak such casual wisdom, though she was still agitated. "Aang left me. He left all of us. I know it was important, but…" She couldn't keep up her irritation. She was just too happy to see all her old friends again after so many years, even if they weren't in the best of spirits or the same as she remembered them. "I'm just glad he's back. I'm gladder he remembered us. But now we need to worry less about Aang and more about Zuko and his Nation."

"Isn't that Zuko's problem," Sokka said scratching himself.

"It'll be everyone's problem if there's an uprising or a coup. It could mean another War!"

Some citizens down the street turned toward the three of them. Sokka noticed. "Calm down, Katara. I was joking, though I will admit, it wasn't that funny. Look, that's why were here. We couldn't find… you know," he said, looking around for any potentially receptive ears. There were a few, so he whispered in code, "Crazilla," and wiggled his fingers like ten tongues of flame for added effect. "That's why were here. We need an airship so we can speed up our search."

"Well, good luck. Fire Lord Zuko isn't in a very giving mood nowadays." The three foreigners scanned the community surrounding them, each in their own individual ways. Sokka saw muscle and polished crimson armor patrolling at every turn. An invisible taint fogged the air and parched Katara's throat with the scent of moldy wheat. Toph felt stress wracked bodies shuffle all about her. They all heard something that remained at the edge of their perception the whole time they walked the streets on their way to the palace.

It was low and droning, not like a sound that any one human could make. The ground, the walls, the air, the very foundations of the city, moaned under the weight of its assent.


	22. The Lightning Ride

Warning: Mature Language

I am very likely going to come back to this part and overhaul it, seeing as how I just pumped it out and finished it a minute ago. I do like some of the stuff though and I hope you do too.

Enjoy.

**Chapter 22: The Lightning Ride**

Aang had decided to forgo his tradition citrine monk garb and elected to wear a less conspicuous red shirt, pants and matching hat as he tread the streets of the Fire Nation Capital. He soon became aware of the strife that had befallen the people. All eyes were dropped and listless in the bowed heads of the thin-faced citizens. The air was stale with the smell of hunger and want.

It was midday, but there were no chatting shoppers perusing the market or boisterous salespersons pitching like roused elephant-mandrills. A crispy brown leaf carried by a hot wind tumbled over the Aang's feet and hid between two kiosks sealed with their crimson and black awnings, the stench of fish awful still floating like a low fog over their wooden counters.

A clutch of people shuffled quickly through the intersection ahead and their dull red forms disappeared around the corner. As the diminutive Avatar made his way to the intersection, he noticed that the large building at the corner was under repair. Panels of freshly stained pine were filling in gaps in the walls, but there were still black scorch marks on some of the original siding. He looked in through a gap in the wall and saw further evidence of some terrible fire. There was a smell, a faint smell, swirling through the still and cavernous hall, but it was soon overpowered by another smell wafting through the gaps of the building from some further and unseen source.

Aang peeked around the corner where he had seen those people go just moments before. At the end of the street there was a fragrance fat with plum, fluffy cracked wheat, sharp chili, and salted animal meat. The pale young man tracked to the source of the smell. It emanated from a sturdy wall on something like a warehouse, a blank structure that looked newly constructed. A line of clustered men, women and children snaked around it to a small window at the front. Heavily armored guards stood stolid on either side of the opening through which sat a very androgynous man. Aang thought he was a man, though his sharp features were hard to gauge from a block away.

When he got closer he could hear the gruff fellow at the front of the line begin to raise his voice the epicene character who wore a look of genuine concern.

"I understand it's tough, sir, but your family has already received its allotted amount for the day."

The man at the head of the line leaned his hands on the counter and gave the impression that he was about to pull himself through the portal before one of the sentries pushed him away gently but firmly. "A couple pounds of rice and some stock is not enough to feed a family of _four_!"

"I assure you, if all the weights and ages you've given us are accurate, it will be enough."

"Enough, enough, huh? Let me show you enough." The man wrapped his hairy forearms around a skin-hung skeleton of a girl and gently cradled her in front of the window clerk.

The ambiguously featured man let out a sigh. "It tugs at my sympathies, just like the other five children I've been shown in the past hour."

"She's sick!" The girl flinched at the sound of her father's raised voice. He set her down. "She needs something more than rice and soup! You've got piles of food in there! We can all smell it all the way out here!"

"What, sir, you think I'm just hording this food because I don't care? Don't get it twisted. I care about what I'm doing."

"Letting people starve?"

"You're getting fed aren't you?"

"I don't call a bowl of rice and soup a day getting fed."

"Well, that's what it is, so you'll have to make due."

"You're monsters, you know that? Sitting on all that food in there. Half of that stuff is going to rot, rot while families starve!"

"It is out of my hands, sir."

"It's right behind you."

"And not even _I_ can touch it! What, you think _I'm_ not starving?"

A voice heralded from farther back in the line: "He's already got his rations! Get him out of the way so we can get ours!"

A consenting murmur chattered through the crowd of hunched citizens.

"He's going to give him more!" called another voice. The hushed cacophony of voices started becoming frantic, people's heads raised, pushing towards the window slowly.

"No, no we're not giving him any more," announced the clerk with his head out the window. "No special treatment." The two guards steeled themselves. Were it not for their expressionless faceplates the people would have seen the fear carved on their chiseled faces as the mob started to writhe. The little girl at the front of the line started to wail, but her cries were soon drown out by the shouts of angry men and women pushing against one another.

The Avatar pulled his hat and revealed the sacred teal arrow tattoo that crowned his bald head, its point down at his stern expression, and he stepped forward.

* * *

Zuko leaned hard forward in his throne, hanging his throbbing head in his hand. He could barely hear Bai Tan's bellicose tones over the beating in his ears and his marred left eyeball felt as though it would pulse right out of his head.

Then the pulsing died down and the Fire Lord's advisor went silent. Zuko looked up at his towing counsel and traced the man's gaze to the front of the cavernous, fire-lit room. The Avatar approached them.

"First you want me to free Ozai and now you want me to rescind my decree

I am the Lord of the Fire Nation. I have a responsibility to keep my people safe.

"And I am the Avatar and I have a responsibility to the people of the _world_. It is my duty to see that people not only survive, but prosper."

"How well do you think they'll prosper with the constant threat of death lurking around every moment of the day?"

"Death is ever-present in the unknowable future, but I see what you're saying. Nevertheless, there is suffering out there. I just had to quell a riot in front of some kind of rationing facility." He followed up his statement, mumbling, "I nearly joined the mob myself."

"We need to control every aspect of the citizenry if we are to weed out this threat, young Avatar," Bai Tan said calmly, though the boy's presence put him ill at ease.

"No," rang the Avatar's nasally yet commanding voice. "Suffering to quell suffering is simply… idiotic."

"Aang, you don't understand. These people can't be reasoned with. They're insane. They want nothing more than destruction and anarchy."

"And so you go in the opposite direction and institute tyranny."

"Are you saying I should abdicate and let the old regime just walk in and take over?"

"Of course not, Zuko," the Avatar said with a calming gesture of his small hand. "But understand, what you're doing isn't a far cry from the very thing that defined that old regime."

The potted flames about the room flashed as the Fire Lord rose in fury. "I am nothing like my father!"

"I never said you were. Please calm down. I'm sorry I've been gone all these years, but I'm here to help, now, if you'll let me. I can understand your desire to avoid looking weak by going back on your decree, but it takes a great leader to admit when he's wrong and change for the good of his people. As to this whole terrorism business, they have reasons for doing what their doing, so they have reasoning. We can get them to stop what their doing without force."

"You're saying we should negotiate?" asked Bai Tan. "Negotiate with terrorists? A cult of murderous psychopaths?"

"Better than letting people slowly die of hopelessness."

"Yes, families will face strife in these times, regardless of how we approach this, but we can't let that deter us, as leaders, from doing what is necessary."

"Sir, my family is in the Earth Kingdom, but I think…" Naoki's voice echoed in his helmet and he immediately regretted adding to the discussion unprompted. It wasn't his place to speak out over such important matters.

After the shock of Naoki's unmerited vocalization wore off, Bai Tan resumed with his previous diction. "I'm sorry Avatar, but-"

"Listen to me!" bellowed Aang in what seemed to be more than his own voice. "I will not see a nation suffer at the hands of any leader. More than that, I won't let them suffer at the hands of one of my friends. I know you're stronger than this, Zuko, Fire Lord Zuko. Let your people live free again."

Bai Tan drew himself up as though he was trying to drive his head through the crimson ceiling. He turned to Zuko. "What? You would let him dictate your policy? You would take his word as law? Where is the justice in that? In letting one man make the desci-" The Fire Lord's head advisor trailed off as he listened to himself.

Zuko's stood to deliver his next words with regal force. "More important than him being the Avatar, Aang is my friend and I trust his wisdom and his council."

Bai Tan laughed under his breath. "Well then, lord, if that's the case, what use have you of me? What uses have you of any of your council?"

Everyone in the room went silent before Bai Tan spoke again. "I'll have no more part in this travesty of justice. I didn't come here to advise a puppet king." The looming man stormed out of the chamber defeated, the irony of his words apparent only to him.

As Bai Tan stomped down the red rugged hall past crimson colonnades, a young page sidled up to him and whispered something that set the large man's eyes wide. He rushed to the designated chamber and was shocked and relieved all at once.

"Da Tan. You're… you're burned."

"Yes, obviously," said the bare-chested he-man, wincing as though he was just then pained by the russet scabs that patched his body. "I'm reminded of all those stupid anecdotes about playing with fire and it makes me want to stone somebody's head in."

"Does it hurt?" the advisor asked his brother with genuine concern.

"Of course it hurts!"

"Forgive me. It's just… I'm so happy to see you… safe."

"Are you crying? Butch up, man!"

"Yes, you're right. Not the time for tears of any kind, though, I must admit, the stress I've endured lately has been vitiating."

"Stress vitiating? Yeah, I've had some similar issues."

"You didn't catch her."

The mercenary didn't speak. He didn't even meet his brother's gaze.

"Well, then there's no way," Bai Tan lamented. "The Avatar has undone all my machinations. I tell you, that young Fire Lord is naught but a lily bending to whatever wind breathes the hardest. I'll be the first to admit, my plan had all the fortitude of a woven wall of wool and, in the end, it is my word versus the Avatar's. Not even I have that kind of clout. What's more, he appears to be friends with that scarred puppet, so really the battle was lost the moment that spiritual arbiter arrived."

"So you failed to bring down an entire regime from the inside all by yourself."

"Well, when you put it that way…"

Da Tan chuckled. "I assume you still want them dead: the Fire Lord and all the other royal types."

"Don't you?"

"It's just so funny. I never really believed that pitiful little broken princess would help this whole crazy plot of yours."

"She has influence. At the very least, she creates a certain unrest in the Fire Lord, enough so that he may… slip."

"Well, they left Ba Sing Se after only about half a day there. That Waterbender, he killed Fu Li and some others. I got away as quick as I could."

"Why didn't you send our falcon-kite? Why didn't you send Peng with a message, detailing all this? Had I known…"

"I knew I could still get the job done."

"A job, even in service of my design, is not worth your life. No. Don't give them the satisfaction. Dying at their hands would be a stain on your immortal essence."

Da Tan chuckled again. "I tried to knock them out with a venom cocktail. They both would have been out for a week and even afterward, they would have been paralyzed for another week on top of that. I watched and waited for the right moment, but then she, the Harlot… no, it was the tribesman, the Waterbender. He snapped and they got in a fight. Then she torched the woods for no reason. She really is crazy."

"A dreadful strumpet, to be sure. Well, at least you're safe."

"But there's more. They left soon after and then I heard it. She plans to free her father."

"What?"

"Crazy, right? But, I realized something on my hunt: she isn't the one you need. Her years in prison have made her weak. I don't see any of the cunning in her that I've heard tell of. Princess Azula of the Fire Nation is nothing but a fairy tale, now. But this Waterbender… you remember how I said he killed Fu Li? Do you know what he did before that? He killed two men with just a wave of his hand. Fu Li probably met the same fate."

"'Probably?'"

"I'm not stupid enough to stick around after I see two men splatter like jars of jam, but I know he's dead. I saw the Waterbender… the _Bloodbender _attack him. Kind of a shame, though I can't say Fu Li didn't deserve it.

"A Bloodbender?"

"A Bloodbender, Bai Tan, and one who definitely hates the Fire Nation."

"I see. Yes. You're saying they'll both be here soon."

"Trust me, Bai Tan, the Harlot is nothing. Forget about the little princess. This is our guy and I know when they're going to do it. It's going to be during the full moon, when he can Bloodbend."

"How do you know? Did he say?"

"He didn't have to. He's smart and easy to predict. He'll come when he's most powerful, when he can bend every man to his will. That's the night. That's the night for the coup."

* * *

The golden-eyed woman stood alone on the cold steel bow of the merchant ship, smokestacks coughing exhaust into the pale grey sky behind, and stared vacantly into the west, toward the far off home that did not want her. She wanted none of it.

Over the side, down into the frothing water beneath her, there was no opalescent fish.

She was tired of being Shila, a person birthed from Qilaq's convoluted contrivances and her own fear. She was tired of being someone she wasn't.

In the distance, an enormous storm cloud menaced. Rainfall beneath it appeared as a million black threads hanging down to the sea, obscuring the horizon beyond. Blue light signaled the brewing of heavenly fire within its bosom.

"Captain says he's going to try and go around the storm," Qilaq stated as he approached the solitary black-clad woman who wore a black expression of contemplation that he couldn't see. The Waterbender stretched out his senses and felt no other beings nearby. The Moon, nearly full, had begun to slide its silver silhouette past the distant horizon. Even passing into the clouds, she would still be there. "We'll arrive a little later than planned."

"Does that distress you?"

"No. As long as we arrive with the full Moon, everything will be perfect."

"So you'll have your precious Manbending when we arrive."

"I'll take whatever advantage, especially if we're infiltrating a prison. Speaking of advantages…" he said as the distant cloud growled as it crawled across the sky towards their vessel, which was slowly curving to avoid the storm. Despite the maneuver, it looked as though the edge of the maelstrom would still overtake them.

"Do I have to endure more of your cryptic psychobabble?"

"That's just the way I teach, I guess." He stood at the point of the bow and extended his open hand to Azula who turned with a crinkled look of disgust.

"Get your slimy tentacles away from me."

Normally, being compared to a squid would have had Qilaq rolling with laughter, but his companions constantly cold shoulder had pushed him past the boundaries of his humor. "Alright, I've had enough of this. Don't pretend all the blame rests with me, woman. It was you who started it, you who engaged. I was following your lead. Don't pretend it disgusted you. You enjoyed it. We both did."

Azula chuckled at the serious Qilaq. "You're such a good liar that you can even fool yourself. Believe what you want, if it makes you feel any better."

"I'm about to hand you the power to thwart the very strike of heaven and you're _screwing _with me?"

"_I will never screw with you again!_" she flashed like a lightning bolt, her voice close to breaking. Qilaq was shocked silent as the woman seethed. "You know, it made me feel so good to be with somebody, to be with you. You were there with me when every other person in the world wanted me… gone. You protected me. I could forget the lies. Lies mean nothing to me, but… I'm nothing but a… a girl to you. Some poor girl you fucked."

"Azula, you aren't-"

"Don't."

"I'm-"

"Don't!"

"Fine. But if you want to learn this, you're just going to have to suck it up and take my hand."

"Why bother?"

"I'm surprised at you. This thing I'm offering to teach you, this is power. I thought you of all people would appreciate power. Or was I wrong about you? Do you wallow in your weakness, now, like a little girl?"

Her distress turned to cross anger as she snatched Qilaq's hand in her own. The Firebender singed the swarthy man's palm. Though he could barely feel it, it was the strongest sensation he had felt in days.

He sneered at the pain he couldn't feel and at Azula's fury. "Other hand. It's better if we're facing the same way." She switched hands with scorn and gripped his right hand in her left.

"What is fire?" the Shaman's son's dulcet tones asked the roiling sky. "Fire is will. Fire is life. Heh, they don't say that our hearts 'burn' for nothing. And, if fire is life, then lightning is the pure, heavenly fulmination of being. The plasmic arc. The _spark_ of life. To play with such an insurmountable thing is to toy with the very ether of existence at the precipice of oblivion."

"This is all _insanely_ entertaining and philosophical, but I still have no idea how this technique works and I don't think the lightning cares."

"I'm trying to put you in the right mindset, Dame Cynicism. Think of the power you're wielding."

"I once generated this very power through the cold strength of my ruthlessness," snapped the former Fire Nation princess. "I am not the least bit afraid."

"Good." A pale blue flash of energy cracked the horizon like glass. Thunder reported the exploded air within seconds. They would be struck. Above, within the bosom of the single massive cloud, engorged and black, bolts winked one after the other.

"You're letting it in, Azula. The spark of life. Be careful you do not immolate within its brilliance." Another massive arc reached its fingers down into the unsettling seas, much closer, the thunderclap immediate. The wind picked up and a sudden sheet of rain folded over them.

"You must not have heard me the first time, so I'll say it again; I am not afraid."

"That's the spirit, that's the way! Passion is the energy through which you siphon the nature's fury! Let it cascade through your fingers, arc down your arm, pool in your stomach, your Manipura, and from there let it flow out of you as a tide of cold, decisive, absolute judgment! Arms up and let it in: the judgment of life!"

It was a blinking instant of time at the peak of Qilaq's hysterics. The moment stretched across the strained weavings of their consciousness. Their fibers spasmed as the shivering electricity streamed through them, bridging their linked arms and boiling their bellies with heat like tongues from an angry sun.

The feeling of all that power in her body once again, so foreign, yet so familiar. Azula tightened her grip on Qilaq's hand and felt the whole bolt move from his body into hers. The energy reached up her chest and…

At the last second, she thrust out her right hand and shot lightning out across the cresting waves where the fathomless arc leapt down and disappeared into the depths of the sea.

Her knees collapsed from the strenuous ecstasy of the brief experience. She panted and found that she couldn't release her grip from Qilaq's. It took a minute, but she regained her composure and snatched her hand away just as another bolt of white-hot energy flashed down at them. At Qilaq, who, quick as a flash, snatched the bolt from the tingling air.

Like a moment captured on canvas, the swarthy Waterbender stood wide, his reach toward the raging heavens, light shooting down him in a angular tangles, moving from his leathery hand down his blue cloaked arm, down his leg and disappearing into the steel deck of the ship. Beneath his matted dreadlocks, caught in a breeze or perhaps the power from the strike, he smiled defiantly and his eyes gleamed with a terrible blackness like obsidian pearls under the light of a thousand stars.

Then it was over. The sky seemed to give up and, as quickly as it had conjured, it calmed. The black cloud started to roll away, but before the darkness lifted, something started to happen to the ship. Azula looked up and an eerie green glow emanated from the ship like brilliant sunlight passing through the healthy leaves of an oak.

The light shined through her hands and swallowed all her eloquence, all her words in the awe of its immaterial wonder. She wasn't sure if it was real. It could have been an impossible reaction to the lightning strike. Perhaps it was a symptom of her besetting insanity. Perhaps it was a glamour cast by that deplorable shaman that loomed over her. Or perhaps it was all connected.

Qilaq, however, had words, though few they were. "Remember this, Azula," he said, trying to stop his left hand from shaking.


	23. Call Me Qilaq

Authorial Note: I've gotta say, this chapter is probably my personal fav. Not only is it a chance for me to write in a different way, but it also actualizes the history of Qilaq, Nuan, and Lim. It even brings to light another character with a very interesting back story. At least, I think it's cool. Also, we get to see them fight, which _is_ cool. It's violent, though. Not for the faint of heart.

It's a little long for a single chapter, but this way the unity of the episode stays intact. Actually, I think the last two chapters may be about this long as well. We'll see.

**Chapter 23: Call Me Qilaq.**

I reflect in the waves: whorls that stretch in every direction as far as my eyes can discern and farther still. Steam spurned pistons drum in the gut of the ship, floating steel that cuts a path through the ocean's flowing flesh. The wound bleeds alabaster froth and seals itself as easily as it is cut. What wonders. Fire induced travel across water in earth too scorched to be considered earth. It should sink, but it doesn't and all without any bending or any will. I reflect in the sea spray, wet against my cheek. I am numb - damn poison - but I know it's there.

* * *

I was older and in the woods. I loved the woods. I asked Lim the names of orange flowers with petals that burdened the slender green stems into soft curves. He said, "I don't know. I'm not a book," but he did know most of the names and even how to plant them and when to grow them and I was fascinated because there were no flowers where I grew up. Nothing grew in the stark, ornate ice of my homeland fortress, the North Pole, though I did hear that there was a tranquil space where grass grew and a tree loomed over a pond where the Moon and Ocean met in an infinite ballet. A holy place.

The sky was gray all day and we feared rain. Well, the Earthbenders feared rain, but Anana and I were just itching to get poured on. The Earth Kingdom is so dry and it's so hard sometimes to wash or drink clean water or even have water to bend. That last part isn't really true. There's water to bend everywhere, especially in the woods.

Camp was set in a clearing on the side of a holt. While the rest of our coarse squad of benders were busy gathering firewood and wild edibles, I was squatting in a bush, watching my trap, waiting for dinner to come calling. Waxy green leaves irritated my face and the fact that I couldn't scratch made me want to scratch that much more.

Waiting…

Vines like languid green-snakes hung down from the verdant arbors around the spot that I watched. Moss carpeted the ground and a divot in the turf was filled with a pool of water as still as glass. A tiny bird, no bigger than my fist came and hopped up to the water, admiring its reflection and then drinking from it before fluttering away. It was too small.

A rabbit hopped from the bush opposite my hiding spot. He sniffed the air. I stank of leaves and brush and dirt, so I went undetected. The furry little creature could smell the clean water. He jumped to it and took another sniff around. I still went undetected. The creature's ears dragged along the ground. There was no way that it could move effectively with ears like that, longer than the whole of its round, pudgy body. It wasn't designed to survive.

He lowered his head to the water and stopped, all his motions jerky and second guessed, then, as his tiny brown nose touched the puddle, the liquid snaked up into the rodent's nose and mouth in an instant. The animal launched itself into the air and shot off into the brush, but no farther than a few feet before it drowned.

I bent the water back out of the tiny animal's lungs before it became too scummy and put it back into the divot before I gathered the rodent up by its tiny neck and headed back to camp.

The tents were pitched around the perimeter of a small clearing, all a uniform leaf-green fabric but draped with nets covered in local foliage to camouflage them better. And there was Anana, sitting at the empty fire pit, sewing up a tear in her well used brown and green uniform with a whalebone needle. I looked down at my own threadbare, blue robe: covered in scorch marks and patches and meandering trails of stitches all about it. That robe would have been nothing but holes held together by trim were it not for Anana's fine needlework.

I sat down across from her. Her mahogany skin was bare, bright even under cloudy skies. "Get it torn on something?" I asked.

She looked up, a look of intense concentration still screwed on her brow. "No, I thought I'd rip it myself so I could get some practice in."

"So that's how you stay so sharp."

"Ha ha," she said continuing with her work. I didn't interrupt her again until she had finished. As she slipped her faded garb back on, I tossed the limp rabbit corpse into her lap.

"That looks to be six," she stated, picking it up. "Why do you insist on drowning them? It'd be much more humane to just cut off their heads."

"Would it?"

"Yes, it would."

"Well, either way, they're destined for my stomach. Yours, too," I added, pointing at her. She was already busily skinning the rodent with a blade of ice she fashioned from the water in her wolf-bat-skin pouch.

After a couple minutes of resting under the melodic song of Anana's idle humming, I was roused by the sound of stone feet clopping closer. It was the newly arrived Dai Li agent from Ba Sing Se. Syrang was his name. He came back with an armful of dry branches and Lim and Nuan following close behind. I had asked them to keep an eye on our guest for various reasons. He and the others dropped the wood near the fire pit.

Lim and Nuan promptly plopped down in the dirt, while the constantly stern faced agent patted the dirt and bark fragments from his pristine robe, which hung in one piece from his shoulders to his ankles. The black conical helmet and slack baggy sleeves added to the effect and made him look like a smooth obsidian pinnacle whenever he stood and, like a pillar, he was always stiff and straight. As he sat and whipped the green and gold circle symbol on his chest I thought I saw irritation cross his angular features as he tugged at the pale yellow trim at the base of his robe. That's what happens though when you trounce around in the forest for long enough.

We all sat around in a rather uncomfortable silence for a while before the stoic stranger spoke. "I suppose, now, I should tell you why I was sent. I'm sure it would help alleviate your apprehension. Well, your apprehension about _me_, anyway."

"That would be cool," Lim said, sitting up.

Syrang took in a breath before he began. "Long Feng has grown impatient with your unit's inability to achieve its objectives." He left it at that, possibly to let it sink in, possibly to gauge our reactions.

We just sat silently.

"I'm sure he is," Anana finally said.

Nuan sniggered.

I answered his statement with his same candor. "Our objectives are to stay alive and kill Fire Nation soldiers."

"While occasionally helping local communities rebuild or maintain their infrastructure," Nuan finished for me with an official-sounding tone as she pulled back her tangled black locks.

"I believe that is _exactly_ what our official orders were."

The lone Dai Li agent took another breath that seemed to bother him as it entered his lungs. "Yes, your primary mandates, but on top of that you were ordered to capture high ranking Fire Nation officers and squeeze them for information. That amendment has been in place for some weeks, now."

"You do realize that the 'high ranking officers' earn that position by being exceptionally _lethal_ Fire Benders. Staying alive is our 'primary mandate.' We don't fight with kid-gloves."

"Nope. We fight with rock gloves and ice gloves," said Nuan sprightly.

"That we do," concurred Lim, flexing and examining, apparently admiring, one of his chapped, peach colored hands.

Syrang scrutinized his own jointed, blackrock gloves before responding. "Yes, that is what I hear and it troubles my superior and _my_ superior is _your_ superior."

"Always nice to know you're work's appreciated," Anana said with a laugh. "So, he doesn't approve of our methods?"

"You have a… an unsavory reputation, your unit."

"That's what _we_ hear. And what do _you_ think of us, Mister Syrang?"

"I'm here representing Commander Long Feng. It doesn't matter what I think."

"Of course it does. And he's leagues away at his desk."

"He _should_ be," Lim needlessly clarified.

Still, I felt the need to add to the clarification. "Scheming, as commanders should," I said.

"You're here with us," Anana went on. "We aren't just rumors for you, anymore."

"Color me curious," I said, leaning forward and pressing my artful look against his stern demeanor. I found it a very effective yet passive way to unsettle people and Syrang was already very unsettled, though he tried gallantly to hide it.

"If you're asking what I think of your unit… from a military standpoint, you are efficient, ruthlessly efficient, especially in skirmishes and face to face engagement."

"That's _right _we are. Yeah," Lim concurred.

"And you're scared of us," said Anana.

"Scared!" exclaimed the man, his stony-faced demeanor crumbling. "I'm not scared. If anything I'm disg…" All four of us stared, waiting for him to finish. "I'm sorry. That was rude."

"The truth can be a rude thing."

"Regardless, I apologize."

"Well, we accept your apology, right guys?" We all nodded and laughed a little. "Anyway, let's cook up these little guys before it rains."

"How do you know it's gonna rain, An?" asked Nuan. "I mean, clouds don't always mean rain."

"Well, it has to rain some time. Anyway, I can smell it," and she tapped the tip of her little brown nose. Nuan giggled.

As the skewered meat sizzled over the campfire the four of us jabbed at each other and took turns correcting the facts in each others stories. Occasionally, Anana or Nuan would try to get the stoic Syrang to engage with the conversation. He would drop a few words and then fall back into a silence while the rest of us chimed in with further addenda.

Lim actually convinced me to retell the story of Crabapple Bo. I said he should tell the story, since he actually met the guy (supposedly), but he insisted that I was a much better storyteller than him. He was right, of course, but I still though he should be the one to tell his story. The girls took Lim's side, so I gave in and illustrated the scraggly fisherman and the giant crimson crab covered in orangey eggs and how everyone turned against the fisherman for selling the rotten things.

After I finished the part about him planting the trees, I added Lim's episode. It turns out that Bo became rather infamous because the fruit from the trees that he grew made such a strong moonshine that people started making tubs of the stuff. Alcohol poisoning ensued and people needed blamed old Crabapple Bo for all their drunken troubles.

About the time I had finished weaving my yarn, everyone was cheek deep in marinated rabbit meat.

"Messy eatin' is always the best eatin'," Lim said and then coughed up a tiny fragment of bone from his crispy rodent. Anana laughed and patted Lim soft on his strong, farm boy back.

When we had all finished, I caught Anana staring at Syrang who had removed his rock gloves to eat and was now looking at his greasy hands with a frustrated grimace.

"Here," Anana said with wave of her hand. Water spouted from the furry brown pouch at her side and the liquid coagulated into a hovering globule in front of the stern-browed man. "Do you want to wash up?" she asked.

"Um, yes, thank you," he said as he rubbed his hands in the floating fluid and whipped his lips.

"You're rather clean for an Earthbender."

"I like to keep up appearances."

"I see that. Well, that's nice."

Lim made a gruff sound as he lay back in the dirt.

After Syrang finished washing up, he made an observation, perhaps hoping to glean more information from us. Anana seemed to have become his subject of choice. "I didn't think that the Southern Water Tribe had any Waterbenders, anymore," he said.

"They don't, as far as I know," she responded, charming the blob of water back into her pouch. "The Fire Nation abducted them all."

"Yes, and yet, here you are, Miss Anana."

"But I'm not from the Southern Tribe, Mister Syrang."

"Hmm… but, the Northern Water Tribe is a patriarchal society where only the men are allowed to study and practice the warrior arts."

"You are very well informed. It is so very nice to hear people from without my culture lecture me on its inner workings."

"I… then…?" the agent stammered trying to draw out a little more information from my annoyed, sarcastic friend.

"Well, since you seem to have backed me into a corner, I guess I'll tell you a bit about me. When I was a little girl, I secretly studied Waterbending by watching the boys practice and the masters put on demonstrations."

"You were able to assimilate that much just by watching?"

"Yes. Just good at keeping track."

"Incredible."

"Well, it was a lot of work. Most of the work was keeping it secret, but one day my friends got in a fight and it got out of hand, so I separated them by freezing them to walls on opposite sides of the canal. Of course the others ratted me out. Kids i_and_/i adults saw it. Everyone saw it."

"And so, for practicing a forbidden art, you were exiled."

"You are a presumptuous man, Mister Syrang."

"Well, obviously you're here in the Earth Kingdom."

"It was worse than exile. Chief Arnook forbade me from marrying."

Oh," he said and scrunched his brow under the shadow of his conical helmet's brim. I could tell he was trying to comprehend the gravity of the situation. "Well that doesn't-"

"I could never have a family," Anana snapped as though she were trying to break Syrang's naiveté like a rabbit bone. It shut us all up. It shut the forest up. A coal popped in the fire pit and Nuan made a wide-eyed face, looking like she was silently whistling.

"But…" the agent began, "you had a family, didn't you?"

"Yes," Anana said curtly, "but I could never make my _own_ family. I could never marry a man, no matter how much I loved him. I could never have a child. Make no mistake, sir, it was a _punishment_."

"And now you're, fighting in the Earth Kingdom."

"Fighting _for _the Earth Kingdom. This is my country, now. Here, I'm free… and that's the only way to live." I almost let my cynicism get the best of me when she said that, but, being in mixed company, I had the wherewithal to support my compatriot with my somber silence, as did everyone else present.

Agent Syrang allowed himself a humored sound and smiled, rather insincerely I thought, at Anana. "Admirable sentiment. Like any true citizen of the Earth Kingdom."

"You bet your ass," she punctuated and the tension in the air was relieved.

Something else happened with the air shortly thereafter: it got wet. Rain fell from the sky in fat droplets, causing Nuan, Lim and Syrang to retreat into their tents. Anana and I just raised our smiling faces skyward and let the rain soak our parched skin.

The shower continued halfway through the night. The next morning we all woke up to soggy tents and a luscious green forest. The fresh air tasted like powdered snow melting down the back of my throat. I almost forgot about all the walking we had to do that day in order to catch up to a small Fire Nation platoon. According to Syrang, they were a group of twenty men, give or take, escorting a high ranking commander or intelligence officer or something through the forest to meet up with a larger detachment some miles away.

We loaded up our modest packs and started marching toward our destination. Anana volunteered for point and Syrang helped lead. Lim and I followed close behind while Nuan picked up the rear. It was a quite walk until Lim opened his mouth, just as I knew he would.

"So, have you talked to her?"

"No, Lim, I haven't."

"Why not?"

"Because telling her about how you feel when _you _are within earshot seems a little silly to me."

"Well, I don't know what to say. You're the one that's good at talking to people."

"No I'm good at telling people things."

"Same difference."

"So, you want me to go up to her and say, 'Lim doesn't want to get into a serious relationship with you, Anana. Can't you two just keep having sex and that be it?'"

"You wouldn't say _that_, come on."

"That's right because I know she'd punch you and she'd probably punch me by association."

"You can't just have sex with her, huh?"

"I know she wants more."

"But _you_ don't. Why not just get a few good lays out of her before she cuts you off with threats of commitment?"

"That don't feel right, but why can't it be that way?"

"Because it's not the sex you want. It's the warmth, the companionship, the compassion. People don't want sex. They want people."

"Can't I have both?"

"Yes, but you don't want that. You just want sex."

"But you just said… do I?"

"This one's all yours, Lim." I said, slapping his hard palm against his confounded friend's unyielding back.

"You are no help, man, ya know that?"

"I try."

"Well, I'm gonna go and see what's up. We've been walking for hours."

"You do that," and he did. It was at this point that Nuan caught up with me while walking backward and asked, "So what were you guys talkin' about?"

"Love and sex."

"Goody. Sex. Why don't we ever have sex, Qilaq?"

"Because this sphere of existence couldn't handle the titanic tremors from our conjoined quivering."

"Oh, is that why?"

"Yep."

"Good to know," she said and started to tie her hair back into a short, bushy ponytail. "So what's up with _their_ sex?"

"I think Lim is more concerned with their _Love_ - capital 'L' - than he's willing to admit."

She turned to walk forward again. "He always did strike me as the romantic type."

"Nothing like us."

"Nope." I look back and wonder if Nuan was just miming my manner out of some childish admiration. Actually, now that I _really_ think about it, she was too much her own woman at that point to mimic anyone like an awestruck toddler. I held her hand early in the War, but by that time she was very much free from my influence.

It was at about this point that Lim, Syrang and Anana all dropped to the ground as though they were being buzzed by some low flying winged death. Nuan and I reflexively followed suit and crawled slowly up to where they were crouched in a bush near two trees.

Anana must have just finished counting the Fire Nation troops that looked to be resting in a wide gap in the trees. "Syrang, when you said 'give or take' you really just meant _give a lot_, didn't you?"

"My previous estimates were wrong," he said, despondent.

"Shit yeah, they were wrong," Lim hissed.

I shushed my compatriots and moved forward to count the damage for myself. "Miscounting thirty troops is one thing," I whispered, "however, I'm more concerned about you not telling us about that _tank_."

"I apologize. My information must have been-"

"Save it."

"We should wait 'till nighttime," Lim quietly suggested. "The moon's full, so it'll be cake for Qilaq and Anana. They could just stroll out there and pop that whole platoon of flamin' zits."

"No, we can't wait," Syrang whispered with immediacy. "They'll have joined up with another complement of troops by nightfall."

"How do you know?"

"It's my business to know what most don't."

"Well it looks like someone should revoke your business license because a tank is not something I don't want to know… about."

"Believe me there are troops nearby. I know this first hand. We can't risk them doubling their force. We… we have to take them now," I could hear the fright in the emissary's voice.

I assured him with confidence in the fact that, "Even if they join with their company tonight, we could still take them. Or don't you know what a Moon-kissed Bloodbender is capable of."

"Well, as I mentioned before, I've heard the horror stories."

"_True_ horror stories, Mister Syrang," said Anana with an almost wicked candor.

"You can't just smear them all across the battlefield. The commander must survive. We need to know their plans if we're to have any hope of defending Ba Sing Se. We need that edge."

"You'll get your edge when we get ours. Trust us."

"When the Moon rises tonight, you can have your choice of Fire Nation brains to pick." I was rather pleased with myself for drumming up that line and it seemed to instill the agent with a bit of control over his trembling, hard-cut jaw.

"Well, if that's the case, then I suppose we should-"

"Hey. Hey! There are people in the buAaahh…" Lim stood quick and uppercut a column of earth up beneath the half-armored Fire Nation soldier, launching the loud crimson youth skyward, above the forest canopy.

"Get 'em now!" I screamed as I launched myself at the throng of startled and rousing enemy soldiers, hoping that my friends were on my heels. As I spun around to shatter the water out of the trees behind me, I caught a happy glimpse of the fire in my friends' eyes. Anana whipped the water from her pouch into a liquid lash. Lim was striking at the air and I heard the earth behind me jut up into several squishy victims. Nuan pulled her forearms out of the ground and charged screaming with gauntlets of hardened dirt and stone. Syrang hesitated.

The water I gleaned from the engorged trees was enough. I willed the water into a shuddering circular sheet above the treetops and gave it a beastly face with a gaping, toothy maw. Anything to keep the Firebenders off balance. I turned on the troops with my own face as beastly as my frightening creation and then sent it down at the gaping men as a flurry of icicles. It was a thin spread, but a few of the shots stuck, one or two in vital points.

I caught Nuan socking a cloud of teeth and blood from her nearest foe and sending him sailing back. Then my enemies had my full attention. Ice clawing my fingers, I raked one man's face and slit his eyes. Another Firebender punched a flame at me that I barely dodged. I was able to launch the ice on my left hand into his throat. I whipped up some more of the icicles I had scattered and fashioned a thin edge, just in the nick of time it appeared, as a halberd blade glanced off my icy sword. The scared soldier was screaming like a crazed lunatic, though I can't say I didn't agree with his attitude. He stabbed at me again and I parried again. When he tried to pull his weapon back, I melted the ice, wrapped the shaft, and froze it again, yanking it from his hands. The wide-eyed man tripped backwards and fell on a pinnacle of stone that decided to spring up at that moment. I'd thank Nuan later.

The halberd dropped, I drew up more water but it quickly evaporated when I swept it into a membrane to shield myself from a fireball. I sidestepped several other blasts as best I could to close on the attacker, all the while clumsily drawing the icicles out of the ground. Every frozen shard I threw at him was melted or dodged. I felt the skin on my shoulder smoldering, so I ducked behind one of Lim's columns.

Syrang streaked across the ground and toward my attacker at incredible speed. I peeked around the rock and saw flames lick at his clean black robe as a fireball deflected around his stone gloved hands. He grabbed the Firebender's hands in his own and I swore I could hear the poor guys fingers break in Syrang's grip. That made me smile.

I pulled a few more icicles and doused my burns. Another Firebender shot at the pillar I was hiding behind so I flew around it and sent the little water I had into the man's mouth and flooded his windpipe and then froze it.

The tingling smell of lightning sizzled in the air. I turned and saw electricity dancing around a grinning older man some distance away. He was grinning at me and as he stuck out his fingers to strike me with lightning, I grinned back. The battlefield stood still as the bolt of light snaked toward my pointed hand. It struck my fingertips and I quickly stomped my foot and redirected the energy harmlessly into the ground.

Silence…

The battle was over. I heard Syrang mumble from his slack-jawed awe. "He certainly is the son of Ataninnuaq… the Holy Demon of the North." I wasn't sure if he was referring to me or my dad. He was right, though; I am my father's son.

"Ah! That's him! The commander's getting into the tank!"

Indeed, the elite Lightningbender was scrambling into the steel vehicle. "That's right, run. Run and hide in your steel sanctuary! It makes you easier to drown!"

"No! We are capturing this man!" Syrang panted as he slid across the ground and leapt up on top of the steel-tracked juggernaut. I obviously remembered this. Otherwise, I would have turned that man's power into his undoing.

"Everyone okay?" called Nuan, letting the bloodied stone drop from her hands. She startled me, she was so close.

"You betcha!" called Lim.

"I'm okay, too, Nuan!" Anana called.

"That's good!" Both Lim and Anana were on the opposite edge of the clearing, behind the tank. Syrang was trying hard to lever open the hatch with his rocky hands.

The tank exploded into a blaze of fire and rent steel. The shockwave knocked me and Nuan over. I felt like I'd been kicked in the chest and the head all at once. All I could hear was ringing. I touched Nuan who responded with what appeared to be a moan. She looked fine. Then I heard something. Screaming. Lim screaming in agony.

I staggered to my feet and shuffled through the steel wreckage that littered the ground. Where the tank once stood was nothing more than a smoking pile. I followed the sound of Lim's voice and then saw him lying on his belly at the base of a tree. I could see his whole back bleeding. As I approached I glanced down and saw Anana sprawled on her belly with her head turned to the side, the mortal terror frozen on her lifeless, bug-eyed face. In death, her opalescent eyes strained to take in all Sight. I had to try and save Lim. That's all my brain could think in the surreal landscape of the aftermath.

I knelt by Lim. His sanguine fluids pooled in the haggard, shrapnel filled divots that covered his back like gravel strewn puddles after a summer rain. He wouldn't stop wailing. I pulled my robe off and just pressed the whole thing against his back. He screamed louder. His blood soaked into my faded blue clothing.

My hearing returned, though, dull as it was, I wish it hadn't. I heard something fall to ground behind me. It was Nuan. She was kneeling next to Anana's body. Tears welled up in her beautiful, gold-flecked, green eyes.

"Nuan, help me over here!" I commanded, though not with much force.

"You're okay," she hiccupped. "You said it. You're okay. You're okay, Anana. You're okay."

"_Fuck, Nuan! Help me save Lim!_" All she did was look over at me vacantly and weep.

My robe was turning a deep, wet red. Lim was gonna bleed out. I pressed harder and he screamed louder, then he started to quiet down. He was going into shock. I started to retell the Ballad of Crabapple Bo to keep him awake. It was all I could think of. If he could make it until Moonrise, then maybe I could save him.

I've never been religious by inclination, though extremely spiritual by nurture. There are forces beyond the physical and elemental and those forces can be harnessed, if for no other reason than to give us peace of mind in times of strife.

I dabbed my finger in Lim's blood and drew the symbol of my element and my birth culture's deity on my forehead to honor that most holy of heavenly bodies that might give me the strength to seal Lim's spirit within his broken form. With a bead of blood I inked a line, horizontal beneath my matted hair, then down at an angle between the eyebrows, then back up at an angle. A simple inverted triangle. It's amazing how much solace it gives me to know that generations before me were comforted under this shape for that force which has none.

"Just live 'till Moonrise, Lim."

…

He did. He survived to the night. And when Mother Moon peeked her glorious, silver crown over the farthest hills, I felt her gentle caress on my shoulders and her power was mine. It was the first time I had used my will over blood to keep someone whole and alive. It was difficult - I couldn't get some of the metal shards out and had to trust to hope, sadly - but it was worth it.

Morning came. I hadn't slept. I hadn't taken my eyes off of Lim. He was resting now, too exhausted to feel anymore pain. I felt Nuan still behind me.

"When Lim's stable, we're going back to Ba Sing Se. We've earned a rest. Long Feng owes us that much. Anyway, we have to tell him what happened. We're his emissaries, now."

* * *

I was too young for war. No one is ever old enough for war. To feel sinews as boiled noodles on your cheek. To hold a heart in your hand and feel it skip a beat forever. To hear babies' screams from men's throats: they always call 'momma,' always. To taste copper liquid and not know if it's yours or his or his or his. To see her just lie and not get up. No one is ever old enough for war. I was too young for war.

My dad dead and then his killer caring for me. That was a trauma. It never haunted my dreams more than once, though I never remember my dreams. Maybe that's why. Maybe my brain knows what my mind can't handle, so it saves me from the scarlet worst. All my dreams are scarlet, now, and all the same: all the worst.

Before, when I was younger, there was a girl in white, though it was really red and black: a Fire Nation uniform. But we stripped it from her and then she was white and we ruined her. I ruined her. That was trauma. I want to redeem myself for that. Can I? No, but I'll try.

I have done all I can to remember them in their pristine entirety, but time seems to have fogged all but the worst, the most death defying of it. I remember Anana. I see her everywhere I can. Anything to keep her alive. Even Syrang deserves a bit of recollection, the righteous fool. That's all I can do.

Now I rest my seizing back against a dull steel plate. Behind it, the ocean laps, trying to flood in and swallow me up. She won't but She will always try. I look to my right, to the bow, where my lovely raven-haired friend, Azula, stands in black with her gold brooch and bright amber eyes locked on the horizon. The sea spray explodes and hisses as the vessel charges to the foreign shores of an island nation that she calls home. Her blaze will not be welcome among the many scorching tongues of the Fire Nation. They may welcome me, but learning of my companion they would turn and heed no explanation no matter its validity. They do not care about my life. But I do not care for theirs.

I told her once of Demons, hers and all and the adjustment they seek, and she adjusted and became a balanced whole, but those are only Demons, things that come from a red realm and seek to keep the world steady upon the fine fulcrum of Being. Only Demons. Not Monsters. Monsters are the stuff of the world and madness and chaos for its own sake. They are all that unbalances the world. They do not want to end the strife. They wish it to continue and let pain proliferate. They are will, unyielding. They are human. They are chariots of wrath.

So I will kill, once again. I will end lives I know nothing of. I won't _take_ them, for _take_ implies possession and I am not a vessel for their souls. They are their own vessels, soon to be shattered jugs from which their water of life will splash and muddy the dust. They may not deserve it, but that is what I will do to them. The Fire Nation. The Fire Lord.

_I will fall like an ocean on that man._


	24. Till Human Voices Wake Us

Be forewarned, it's about to get bloody. And it's long. One more chapter to go.

Enjoy.

**Chapter 24: 'Till Human Voices Wake Us**

An unseasonable mist as thick as grubby cotton veiled the Fire Nation port. It made the perfect cover for the two invaders. However, it also blinded them, so Azula sat at the bow of their small craft straining to see ahead of the gently bobbing wooden lifeboat while Qilaq propelled it across the water with little effort.

They would moor their covert craft to the craggy shore and while the ship they came in on unloaded at port, they would scale the hill, infiltrate the Capital City Prison, free Ozai, and make their way back to the boat and out to sea where they would re-board the frigate as it sailed back to the Earth Kingdom. That was part of the plan, the part Qilaq was aware of. If the fine details played out in their favor it would work, though it unsteadied Azula, not being certain of the unknowable variables.

She just had to trust to fate. She hated trust. It was the height of ignorance and a harbinger of despair. She considered her life and luck thus far and came to the conclusion that she hated fate more.

Her slender fingers pulled out her golden flame brooch and pinned it to her bosom, above her beating heart. She adjusted it slumped back in the bow of the boat with a mild relief. Qilaq noticed the metallic jewelry and raised his eyebrows at her as he continued to make slight waving motions with his hands.

"Hmm…" he started. "Well, if you're going to be flashing your symbol, I suppose I should put on mine."

"You have a symbol?" Azula scoffed turning away to watch for land again.

"Of course, though it's not the one you'd expect."

"How unexpected," she remarked, though the Firebender was intrigued. She knew the symbol for the Water Tribe - a dark blue circle with waves streaming from the inner crescent of the waning moon - but what kind of symbol would a homicidal son of a shaman adopt as _his_?

Qilaq stopped his waving, though the boat still coasted shoreward (hopefully they were going shoreward). He pointed his index finger and a cut formed on the tip and started to bleed. When a bead of blood had formed he ran the finger just beneath his hairline, then down at an angle to between his eyebrows, then back up at an angle, forming an inverted triangle.

He rubbed his finger and the cut was gone. "This is symbol predates my entire culture, the Four Nations, and possibly even Bending itself. It is the ancient symbol for Water."

"And where did you learn that?"

"Where do you think?" Azula could guess. It was likely the same wellspring from which all his insanity and brilliance gushed. "You know what it means to invert this symbol I'm wearing?"

"Well, that would make it its antithesis."

"Very astute," Qilaq commended. "So, if this represents water, what does it represent when inverted?"

"Fire," she intoned.

"Yep."

"Are you saying that I should draw a triangle on my head too?"

"No. Though full of… significance, it doesn't mean anything to you, so it's useless." Azula let out an exasperated groan. "Your brooch," Qilaq continued, nodding at the glinting golden flame on her chest, "has far more meaning because you've given it meaning, personal meaning, and there is no greater meaning than that we create ourselves."

Azula let out another exasperated groan. "How very profound."

"I try."

"I suppose it's too much to ask you to stop?"

"Yep."

"Of course…" She mumbled something about pig-heads and ice density at the Waterbender's expense.

"We are quite a pair," he laughed, waving faster, the boat floating faster.

The stressed Firebender looked up and noticed the pale glow of the evening sun, a single circle of light penetrating the monochromatic sheet of fog. Her powers would be at their lowest point as soon as the sun set. Conversely, when darkness fell, the Waterbender with her would be imbued with a terrible and insurmountable power. Tonight was the night. Tonight the full moon would rise.

The white mist in front of her darkened. A shadow. A huge shadow. Land. Land they were about to crash into! "Stop!" she barked. An instant later she jerked forward and almost fell over the side.

"We made it," Qilaq said sounding pleased.

Azula righted herself. "We're not there yet," she said curtly.

The two of them pulled the boat up onto the shore and started to hike in the direction Azula thought the Capital City Prison was. Her only point of reference in the dense haze that surrounded them was the sun. From what she could figure from the direction of their approach. Following the sun would lead them straight to capital. They found a road after a while and followed it, all the while going up. The fog thinned out almost as an act of providence and the dormant volcano in which the capital city was built loomed over the two of them.

A thought occurred to Azula. Could Qilaq be pulling this fog in around them? She turned to her wryly smiling companion for a brief moment. It could be him. It was almost time.

At the precipice of the mountains crater the sun fell beneath the horizon. Its warm light died away, replaced by the dim silver blush of the moon: its pale shadow.

Qilaq breathed deep and felt the drum of sleeping bodies all around him as the two stealthy benders scurried through the lifeless streets and back alleys. The night was glorious, the light intoxicating. Blood pounded all around him, all waiting to be bent to his will.

They finally arrived at the fortress prison, its sheer stone edifice nestled under a craggy outcropping. Azula remembered a secret entrance that her Dai Li liberators had brought her through when she escaped some time ago. She hoped it was still there and indeed it was.

The next step was to find out were her father was located. They snuck through the shadowy torch-lit halls and finally found the records room behind a clearly labeled steel door on the ground floor. Azula nearly rounded the corner in front of a lanky guard lazily walking down the hall perpendicular to her and Qilaq. She turned and silently shook her head at Qilaq who smiled deviously and then nodded.

The guard unlocked the door to the room and half shut it behind him before groping under his thin black armor and retrieving a small steel flask with the words "NOT BOOZE" etched diagonally across it. He unscrewed the cap hastily, turning to make sure he is alone. When he turned back the strong clear liquor was pouring up into thin air. The dumbstruck man gaped at the unbelievable sight and then the liquid charged into his mouth and flooded his windpipe. He spun around and tried to call for help, tried to cough, tried to breath, but his lungs were completely sealed. Qilaq locked eyes with his victim who gasped breathlessly a few times before collapsing on the stone floor. After a few moments of twitching and reaching for his killer's ankles, the man went limp.

Azula tried not to watch. She kept her gaze fixed on the scrolls shelved near the desk. The door clicked closed and Qilaq leaned against the wall as Azula moved to examine the files. She found a recent schedule for the guard rotation as well as a prison floor map and set both of those aside.

Her fingers traced the cubbyholes until she found a stack of registers. Unrolling the most current record, she ran her sharp nail down the list. Her father's name wasn't there. This didn't discourage her though. She expected as much. They wouldn't list such a high level prisoner so explicitly. She checked the guards' assignments again and cross referenced some of the areas of persistent watch with the cells on the register. She found a couple cells under constant watch and one had been like that since the beginning of that record. She checked logs going back three more years and noticed a similar watch. That had to be her father. He was listed under the name "Ryuu" in cell fifteen on the second floor.

Before she finished, the plotting Firebender checked a higher security area toward the top of the complex and closed her eyes as she memorized the layout and numbers, all the information.

"Find it yet?" Qilaq asked quietly.

"No," she hissed and continued to plot her course.

When she thought she had it, she turned and nodded to her murderous partner. He seemed to twitch a bit. His hand was shaking until he clenched it. Then Azula looked down at the body.

"We can't leave him to be found," she whispered.

"Yep, you're right," and with that Qilaq picked up the corpse like it were made of straw and tilted his head at the door, telling Azula to lead the way. "You're the one who knows where were going. Lead the way."

"You aren't just going to liquefy him?"

"Why bother? I can't liquefy his clothes, anyway, though if somebody found the clothes, they'd think someone was streaking through the halls," he laughed. His female companion glowered at him.

With that, they went up the stairs and to the second floor. Qilaq opened the door to the first cell and dropped it in the room. The rag-worn inmate stirred and shot upright, his terrified sunken face illuminated by a sliver of moonlight coming through a small hole in the wall above his cage. The blue silhouette in the doorway and put its finger to its lips.

A yelp attempted to escape the gaunt prisoner, "Gua-," and then there was a squelch followed by a sound like tea spilling on brick. Qilaq promptly shut the door to the silent cell.

The two invaders padded up to the fifth floor of the fortress undetected. Azula slid against the wall and then peeked around the corner. Two burly men stood slightly slumped against the wall opposite a cell in the middle of the dimly lit hall. The woman looked to her coffee colored companion, pointed behind her, and put up two fingers. Qilaq nodded and slipped past her, squatting at the wall's edge.

He swept his arms and pulled the closest guard toward him as though by some invisible lasso. The man sailed down the corridor and smashed against the fire-lit stone wall with a wet crunch and splintered bones jutted through its skin at odd angles before the body fell into a disjointed heap on the floor, leaving a splattering of blood.

"Please be stupid," repeated the Bloodbender as he listened for the other guard's reaction. To Qilaq's delight, the frantic man ran to his fallen comrade, but when he passed the corner Qilaq leapt up at him and drove the point of his flattened hand at the man's stomach. His frozen-blood-edged fingertips pierced the guard's thin leather armor and the Bloodbender's arm went up through the stabbed sentry's gut up to the elbow. Qilaq sneered as he clenched his fingers round the pulsing, warm mass in his gurgling victim's chest. The shocked man tensed and then his head fell forward and his tongue lolled out. Entrails trailed Qilaq's arm as he yanked it out of the corpse, draining it dry. Blood coalesced into a long stream of water that extended from him like a sanguine tentacle.

A gasp at the other end of the hall. Two more hearts raced and sent cold blood through trembling muscles. Qilaq raised his hands as though raising something delicately with his fingertips. The feet of the two guards slipped out from under them and they fell flat on their backs, the wind leaving both of them. They tried to rise but were dragged across the floor before they could recover. When they came to rest at Qilaq's feet their throats were slit by a cold blade of blood before their breath returned. The wounds spouted like fountains and the men gurgled intensely before pale death.

"Don't bother to help or anything," he remarked to Azula sarcastically as he turned around. But she was gone. The Bloodbender paused for a moment, the fluids around him swirling and writhing against gravity, and then he laughed.

"The warble of death. The sharp smell of it," chittered a gruff voice from within the cell the first two guards were guarding. "It has started, hasn't it? You are here to exact bloody doom on those worthless wastes of heat and light, the unworthy followers of the false Fire Lord." Qilaq looked through the barred portal on the cell door and saw a beaten, boney man with a grimy yellow grin and a soiled, ripped loin cloth gripping the bars of his cell. "We shall be their immolation. We shall bring the world back its burning heart. We are the disparate slivers of restoration. We a Kagutsuchi. Now, free me."

Even across the room and through the door, Qilaq could smell the prisoner's acetous breath. "You're not Ozai, are you?" he asked the bag of bones.

"No, no. But free me so I may help with the havoc. He is here? The true Divine Lord of the Phoenix? That is wonderful. Free me and we'll get him."

"No. I'd rather it be a private moment."

"Huh? Well, fine, just free me then, so I may-"

"I got it. Free you, eh?"

"Yes, get me out of this cell so I can k-" Again the sound of liquid splashing on stone echoed in the stillness of the sanguine scented hall.

"You are quite the player, Azula," Qilaq said. "Too bad you don't know all the rules."

His father's words lived once again and, in the sanguine pantheons of his mind, they echoed:

_Now, my son, let us make their souls bleed fear._

_

* * *

_

The black-clothed Azula rushed down the stairwell on silent feet and arrived at the second floor. Around the corner, a helmeted guard leaned motionless next to her father's cell. She moved like a shadow to the opposite wall and slid across the wall, taking care to stay in the guard's blind spot. She would have to knock him out quick. She was almost in striking distance when the guard removed his helmet and let out a bored sigh. Azula froze. The guard caught something out of the corner of his eye.

"What?" he said before dropping his helmet and throwing a flaming left hook at Azula's head. She pulled back just in time and the guards hand smashed into the rock wall. He winced and stepped back only to be met by a roundhouse kick to his temple. The blow smashed his head into the wall and he fell over unconscious.

She was rather pleased with herself. One blow was all she needed. The front door to the cell was unlocked. She stepped in.

Azula hadn't prepared herself. This was the first she had seen of her father in years. Cool relief and unbridled joy and fearful shame and stinging pity all crashed within her when she laid her eyes on the slumped, half-awoken form of her Ozai. It was dark, but the moonlight was enough to afford her the sorry sight. Threads of his tangled, gray-laced hair covered his sunken cheeks. His hands were vainly and covered with liver spots. The dirty brown mess of a man raised his delirious vacant gaze and Azula's heart dropped into her stomach. The same blank stare was on her own face when she reflected on her own insanity by the riverside.

"Azula," Ozai said pleasantly. "Oh, I'm glad to see you again. Yesterday seems so far away. It's hard, the loneliness, but you know that. You're locked up like me. I know you can't talk. I… I can't remember your voice, but come and sit with me, please."

It was the hardest thing she had ever done. The words were stuck sideways in her throat. She pushed with all her will to say something, anything! "…Father," Ozai looked up. "Father, I'm really here." The Firebender cocked her fist and then, twisting her whole upper body behind it, punched the lock with a fiery blow. Smoke-trailed splinters of steel flew into the cell and a red-hot gap was left in the side of the cage gate.

"Azula… you're…" the sickly Ozai gasped. He rose and wrapped his stinking form around his daughter. Azula was so shocked that she shoved him away. This wasn't him. It wasn't her father. How could it be? She must have made a mistake.

"Azula… my prodigious little girl. I'm so…" his voice broke off and a tear traced its way through the grim layering his cheek. She had never seen her dad cry, ever. It couldn't be… but… A whisper in his gravelly voice. His prominent brow. It was Ozai. It was her father.

She let her apprehensions dissolve and embraced her father, trying hard not to lose herself in the joyful release. They still had to escape.

A muffled din filled the air: a dread wracked cacophony of knells everywhere. The sound of screams. And then the sound cut and the echo died.

Silence.

"Come on," Azula prompted, taking Ozai's hand in hers. "We have to get out of here before-"

"You're heart's pounding, Azula," a horrifyingly calm voice said from the hall. "I can feel it." Qilaq stepped slowly into the cell and gently shut the door behind him. "It makes you very easy to find, even amongst these throngs of pulsing blood-bags." Ozai was confused and then he felt his daughters grip tighten on his hand. The swarthy man barring their exit looked at the man behind Azula. It was Ozai. It had to be. "I've tasted this in my wilder dreams. It's you and it's me and I with the Moon, her sweet, blessed kiss on my cheek." The Bloodbender looked at Azula. "Step aside." She just glared at him unflinchingly. "Don't make me stain the walls with you, too! Move!"

"Make me."

"Ha, fine." With a wave of his arm an invisible tug yanked the svelte Firebender from her father's grasp and pinned her to the shadow veiled masonry. A similar force rippled through Ozai's flesh like a cold shiver. He couldn't move.

Azula struggled against the force, but to no avail. Her mouth still worked, though. "I'll kill you, I swear," she growled. She still had her words. "If you do it, I'll kill you!"

"Maybe, but not tonight. Not before…"

Ozai felt an ache like warmth in his muscles.

Perhaps if she could distract him, a guard would come. Then they could escape… maybe. "Why?" Azula asked with venom.

"Don't play ignorant. I've told you the stories."

"No, smart-ass, I mean why now? You're obviously plenty capable, so why now?"

"I guess it just never crossed my mind, until you showed up. You're such a positive influence, Azula. The atrocities forced on me; the ones I've had to commit; him; all of our suffering was because of him. Do the reasons even matter at this point?"

"Alright. You want to talk about suffering. Let's talk about suffering. This. Being shut away, locked up for years. The world fearing and despising you."

"That happens when you burn people to death, people like my friends."

"Oh, get over it. My friends were killed in front of me, too."

"But how many times?"

"It doesn't matter."

"You wanna bet! The worst part is that I don't even feel, anymore: not sick or sad or anything. It's like watching the wind."

"You want to know what torture is? Suffering you!"

"Likewise, to be sure. Isn't this fun? How about this for suffering? Having your dad-"

"Die in front of you… while you watch, helpless?"

…

"I… please, don't," Azula pleaded tearfully. "Don't kill my dad."

The force binding both Ozai and Azula ceased and they fell to the floor. Qilaq braced himself against the wall and stared vacantly at the ground. No one spoke. Azula gathered up her father and ushered him out of the cell. They were gone.

Qilaq moved to the back of the cage and slumped down against the wall under a sliver of Moonlight completely alone.

* * *

"Lord!" Bai Tan yelled as he burst into Zuko's study. The Fire Lord jolted from his lolling half-slumber and knocked a few scrolls from his covered desk. "Something terrible has happened at the Capital Prison."

"'Terrible'? What terrible?" Zuko queried, still trying to focus.

"It appears that everyone in the prison is dead."

"What? It 'appears' that everyone is dead."

"The prisoners, the guards, every one of them."

"Even…" It dawned on Zuko that his father was incarcerated there. If every prisoner is dead, then he's dead, too. The scarred man felt sick, but at the same time it felt like a vapor that had been straining his bones since his youth had finally wafted away. He felt relief.

"Well, nobody has gone in and counted. Most are too frightened to even set foot in the fortress."

"What's going onHey!" Sokka jumped back as a twitchy Naoki leapt at him fist-first. "Lay off, man."

"I'm sorry, sir," the young bodyguard apologized, his voice echoing behind the three-eyed, red-steel flame that decorated his helmet's face plate. "I thought you were… um, an intruder."

"Well, are we intruding?" asked Toph with her gaze leveled at no one in particular.

"Of course not," the Fire Lord said without a move.

"Anyway," Sokka said, coming out of attack mode, "all the guards are freaking out around the palace."

"That's my fault," interjected Bai Tan. "I couldn't suppress this and keep it under control. Too many people already knew before word got to me."

"What word? What's going on?"

"What is it, Zuko?" asked Katara concernedly, seeing the stress wrinkled on her friend's face.

"Something's happened at the prison," he said, straining to keep his voice even. "Apparently, all or at least most of the personnel and prisoners have… died."

Katara was the first to break the crushing silence. "How?"

"We don't know that, yet," Bai Tan responded with a deep seriousness. "We need to send someone in to sweep the whole building, top to bottom, to ascertain the extent of the damage. Whatever it was, it appears to have left the structure undisturbed."

"Then it could be a plague." Everyone in the room turned to Sokka at the drop of his last word. "No, forget I said that. No disease could kill all those people in such a short time." "Furthermore, the people who reported it came back were healthy. This had to have happened recently."

"Then someone attacked them, some kind of stealth strike team."

"Why would they kill everyone in the prison?" asked Naoki as he tried to work it out for himself. "Wouldn't they be trying to set someone free?"

Bai Tan turned to Zuko who looked miles away, leaning with both hands splayed on the disparate sheets of law and order strewn before him. "As I said, we need more information. We need to count the casualties and confirm their identities. Then cross-ref-"

"We'll go find out what happened," Toph interrupted.

"It's quite a horrific sight, young lady."

"Not too concerned about it," she responded, waving her hand in front of her unflinching, blind gaze.

"Don't worry, Zuko," Katara intoned gently. "Just stay here and try and keep everyone calm. We'll be back soon."

The two young women turned to leave, but Sokka spoke up. "Whoa, wait. We need to slow down and think about this."

"We're going, Sokka," his sister said without missing a step as she walked briskly down the dark corridor.

"Hold on a second," he implored as he chased after his stubborn sibling. "We don't know anything about what's waiting for us out there."

"That's right and that's why we're going: to find out. You can stay here if you want."

"Oh, yeah. Like I'm going to let my sister charge headlong into a trap without me."

"We don't know it's a trap."

"We don't know _anything_!"

As the voices disappeared down the hall, Bai Tan turned back to the Fire Lord. After a silent moment, the black-bearded man returned the stoic obelisk's gaze. "I thought you weren't going to have anymore of me."

"Disagreements, lord, are inevitable in politics. In any case, it's the Avatar's decision, so why quibble. I remain at your side because it is my duty to guide you. Whether you heed my advice is entirely your decision."

"Thank you, Bai Tan."

Another man came into the room. Naoki almost jumped him too, but her was… yellow. The spindly figure tripped over his baggy, crimson vestments and whispered something in the Bai Tan's ear.

"What? Are you sure?" the Fire Nation advisor asked, startled.

"That's what they said."

"What?" queried Zuko.

His advisor hesitated. "It… it appears that your sister was seen fleeing the prison with someone."

Zuko's left eye throbbed with pain as awareness viscerally dawned on his face. "Where were they headed?" he asked firmly.

"Lord, I-"

"_Where_?"

"East, likely to the bay to make an escape. Lord, I can't abide you going." Zuko stormed past Bai Tan into the hall.

"So what are you going to do when you find her, Zuko," a low voice muttered stopping Zuko dead in his tracks. The shadows birthed Mai clad in her black nightgown and wearing a look of stoic disapproval as only she could manage.

"I'm going to stop her," he said without turning to face his wife.

"By yourself?"

"Mai, you are _not_ coming."

"Oh, really?"

Zuko charged Mai and wrapped his hands fast around her shoulders. "Damn it, please Mai. You can't ask me to risk you in this."

"But risking yourself is just fine, huh? What are all those guards for that we have? That army we have hanging around. Why not use them to… Zuko!" she screamed after him as he strode off down the hall.

Naoki stepped up to the Fire Lady and removed his helmet before he knelt at her feet. "My Lady, don't worry. I will protect him. I promise." With that shocking moment of chivalrous clarity, Naoki charged after his lord.

Mai wasn't just angry, she was flabbergasted. "Why is everyone in this palace so stupid? Guards!" she called as she stamped down the hall.

In the flickering firelight of the crimson study, Bai Tan and his jaundiced companion stood, thoroughly pleased with the reception of their simple performance. He reacts so predictably," Bai Tan mumbled. "The Fire Lady was a worry, but it seems his stubbornness outweighs his fidelity just enough. If he kills his sister and Ozai, it will further steel the Kagutsuchi's resolve. If she kills Zuko, then that's one less powerful Firebender to deal with."

* * *

Nothing around the moon-lit prison tower moved. As Sokka, Katara, and Toph approached the entrance, they noticed two dark shapes sprawled on the ground. Two corpses. Sokka tentatively investigated the belly-up body, trying not to gag. Toph could smell the juices in the bodies starting to putrefy. The whole place was starting to reek.

"There aren't any wounds. Toph, can you feel any thing wrong with their insides?"

The Earthbender tapped her foot and the vibrations rippled through the body. "Nothing that I can feel, though it's hard to see inside someone. Too squishy." She made herself feel a little sick with the last remark and the image of the dead man still fresh in her memory, the scent fresh in her nose.

"This is weird," Sokka stated.

"No kidding. Wait… I hear something."

"What?"

"It sounds like… laughing… or crying. It's coming from inside."

"Someone survived? Let's go."

Toph and Sokka ran into the building, leaving Katara behind. Her mind was drowning in contemplation. It was just her and the body and… the pull of the Moon. Its gentle, invigorating touch of silver light. All of a sudden, Katara realized what could do this. She knew what could have killed all these men. She recognized the black shadow of her ability cast, engorged, darkened, by the light of the Full Moon.

"Oh, no." She raced after her brother and her friend. They were out of sight. All she could do was follow the sound of that freighting laugh in the silence and hope to catch them before… the laugh stopped.

Racing up the stairs she came out on the second floor and saw Sokka and Toph enter one of the cells before she could yell, "Stop!" Her heart thumped and dread filled her as she rushed to the room, then she turned the corner.

Sokka and Toph were both fine, staring at a swarthy man with dreadlocks who was slumped at the back of the cell. The dim light from the hall illuminated him and his blue tribal robes. Katara knew that he was a Waterbender. She knew he was the horror that had stopped every heart in this prison. It filled her with disgust and dread.

"Who are you?" Sokka asked.

Qilaq giggled a bit. "My name is Qilaq. I am a Waterbender from the Northern… Earth Kingdom."

"Okay, next question. What happened here and… what is so funny?"

"Oh, I'm the one who killed all the guards and prisoners. I suppose, it is apt that I'm barred in this cell. Don't you agree?"

The warrior was shocked. "You… you… killed them? _All_ of them?"

"In one fell swoop, yes. I think… I'm done now, though."

"That's right you're done!" Katara screamed as she swept her splayed fingers at Qilaq. The blood in his veins slowed and started to bubble. There was a moment where he actually felt something, felt his body out of his control. It was pain.

"Katara? Toph asked, feeling the tension in both of the Bloodbenders. "Katara, stop!"

"I can't. He'll kill you if I do."

"No I won't," strained the smiling Bloodbender.

"Shut up!"

"Stop it now, Katara!"

"So, Katara is it?" Qilaq begin. "Do you think killing me will do any good?" The strain on his body increased. He felt his joints start to float apart.

"Oh, I think getting rid of a mass murderer will do a whole lot of good. You two get out of here?"

"What?" Sokka exclaimed, still unaware of his sister's hold on the man in the cell. "Katara, he just killed everyone in this building. You want us to leave you alone with this crazy?"

"No, I want you to leave _him_ alone with _me._"

The tribal warrior finally realized what was going on. The dead bodies, the strange man dressed like a Waterbender, the Full Moon, and Katara's fierce demeanor. He knew it was for the best. "Come on, Toph. Let's let 'em alone."

"Your Bloodbending won't work," she seethed at Qilaq.

"I don't know," he said. "Are you not made of water, woman?"

"I am Master Katara of the Southern Water Tribe. Believe me, I'm more than a match for you."

"I don't."

"What?"

"Believe you."

"Well, then I'll show you."

Further strain. Further pain.

"Go ahead then, _Master Katara_. Like I said, I'm finished."

The stone floor jumped in two places and grabbed Katara by the wrists, pulling the chestnut-skinned woman to her knees. Qilaq felt his body relax. "Let me go, Toph!"

"No! I can't believe you guys. You'd resort to killing? You'd lower yourselves to his level? Sure, what he's done is…"

"Evil!" screamed the restrained Katara.

"But it's done. Now he's here and he's being passive and sincere. I can feel it. This guy's almost as bad as… Ozai, but we can't just kill him. Have you guys forgotten Aang? Did you forget what _he_ did to Ozai? He didn't take his life. He showed him mercy: a man, if there ever was one in the history of the world, that deserved death more than anything. Aang let him live. Are you saying your judgment is more right than the Avatar's?"

Sokka spoke up. "Toph this is-"

"No it's not _different._ You just want to get rid of him because it's easy."

"No, we want to get rid of him because he's going to do this again. You've seen… rrgh, you know what he did to everyone here. He could do that to everyone in the Fire Nation. He could do that to everyone in the _world_."

"But I won't," said Qilaq.

"Shut up!" screamed Katara and Sokka in unison.

"What about you, Katara? You can do exactly what he can do. Should we _get rid _of you, too?"

"Toph, how could you even think I'd do that? I'm nothing like him."

"But you're capable."

Sokka took this moment to offer a compromise. "Well then, if you're not going to budge on this whole noble reverence for life thing, let's just go get Aang and have him suck the bending out of him. Would that be _just_ enough for you, Toph."

"That would be fine by me."

"Alright then," she growled. "Sokka, go get Aang."

"Actually, I think you should both go," Toph said with a turn to the still restrained Katara, who's eyes were strained with malice. "You're not going to try and escape, are you?" Toph said, questioning the calm, smiling Qilaq who lifted his head and looked into the blind girl's unseeing, dull eyes for a moment before answering with a simple "No."

"There you go," Toph said as the stone protrusions shackling Katara released and disappeared into the floor. "You two go find, Aang. I'll watch him."

"Toph, he knows that he can't bend me," Katara said, rubbing her sore wrists. "If I leave he could kill you like he killed this prison and then just walk away."

"Are you going to kill me after they leave and run away?"

"No," said Qilaq, amused by the drama being staged before him. "I will not bend you after they leave. I'm not going anywhere."

"See. He's not lying. I'd sense it."

"I don't buy it," Sokka said. "You're lie-detecting isn't perfect. Azula could fool you. Who's to say this guy can't do the same?"

"If it makes you feel any better…" the master Earthbender brushed her green-sleeve and turned to the sitting Qilaq. "Don't move." The masonry morphed into a cone that jutted up and enveloped him. He grunted as two thin slabs of rock wrapped around his forehead. "There. Now he can't move. Go get Aang guys. Don't worry. Everything's going to work out."

"Things can't get much worse," Katara snarled quietly as she and her brother reluctantly left their trusted friend alone with a mass murderer.

When they left, Qilaq giggled a bit to himself and scrunched up his irritated, blue eyes. "Wonderful."


	25. Drown the Moon

Special Early Release: The final chapter. Zuko rides out to meet his fleeing family. What is to become of them? What is to become of Qilaq? What pale misery will shine under the light of the Full Moon?

I switched the titles of the last two chapters because I thought it more appropriate, considering the subject matter.

Hope you've enjoyed the ride. See ya in the tragi-comedies.

Peace be with you.

**Chapter 25: Drown the Moon**

The night was still a cradled babe and Mother Moon's lullaby was reaching the peak of her heavenly crescendo. The shadows around the single torch hanging in the hall cavorted around the light's orange edge.

It was a dull sensation, but Qilaq could feel a crick forming in his neck. "Don't suppose you could maybe loosen these rocks?" he asked the silent young woman that stood watch over him. Her head tilted to the side and the rocky band around the Bloodbender's head slipped off and back into the wall, allowing him to roll his head and stretch his neck.

"Don't suppose you could maybe explain why you did it?"

"What's to explain? This is a prison," Qilaq said.

"And so they deserved death?" she said raising her voice in anger.

"Well, I can assume _you_ don't think they did. You saved me, and I'm a _mass_ murderer. However, they were criminals, likely murder's as well."

"The guard's too?" Toph said, her anger starting to boil over.

"Sheltering criminals? No, they didn't deserve it, I guess. I just got carried away."

"'_Carried away_?' I can't wait 'till Aang sucks you dry."

"Ha."

Toph ignored the double entendre. "Anyway, I don't buy it."

"My reasons? To tell you the truth, I was only here for one man: Ozai."

Toph choked on a gulp of air as she absorbed that horrid name, that horrid thought, the thought that Ozai, that monster of monsters, was here and now…

He was dead.

"I couldn't do it, though. It's _her_ fault, really."

"_You_."

"Me?" he asked with his artful smile drawn.

"You're the Waterbender that helped Azula, the one that killed the Kiyoshi girls. You're the one who… wait, Ozai's still… where is he!" The dark cell quaked.

"Azula's probably taking him far away, now. Or maybe they'll lie low here in the Fire Nation. I don't kno-!" The wall snatched Qilaq's head back again and the blind Earthbender rushed out of the room in a flash of green and beige, her black locks trailing her like a short cape.

Once again, Qilaq was alone, held fast in the torchlight, the fuzzy corners of the shadows wavering like the surface of a windswept pond. There was a supple white glow from the portal above him.

"The night is still young."

He heard slow, deliberate footfalls echo out in the hall. A massive muscular silhouette darkened the rock encrusted Bloodbender's island of light beneath its shadow.

"Well, look who it is: Mr. Brick," Qilaq chuckled.

"Clever. Had I crushed you under that 'brick' of street back in Xidezhen, your wit would have been sorely missed."

"I think I would have been the sorer in that situation."

"This time, I would barely have to waggle a toe to crush the life from you," Qilaq sensed the rocky cone surrounding him constrict, "and there's nothing you can do about it."

A bead of cold sweat slid down the helpless man's coffee cheek. "It looks that way," he quavered with a smile.

The rock on Qilaq's forehead loosened then slid down and squeezed back together, blinding him and nearly crushing his head. He numbly sensed the rock around his body loosen, then it fell away, though his hands and feet were now tightly bound together in shackles of stone. Footsteps thumped toward him and the rock-blinded man felt weightless as he was lifted into the air and slung over the shoulder of the Earthbending colossus.

* * *

Ozai wheezed and groped at a craggy outcropping as he limped across the rocky landscape some distance from the base of the dormant volcano, its verdant, tree-furred skin hued grey under the full moon light.

"We have to move faster," Azula called to her stumbling father as she took him by the hand and dragged him through the well lit night.

"I am sorry," the aged man apologized in a gruff voice. "I haven't moved much over the years. My legs are rather atrophied, as is the rest of me."

"We can't slow down or they'll catch us."

"Who will catch us? You're frightening friend killed every man in that horrible place."

"He's not my _friend._"

"He may have killed the entire city as well with such a power."

"It wouldn't be beneath him."

"And in any case, who would be a match for you, my daughter?"

"Azula!" screamed a voice in the distance. A great green basilisk scurried effortlessly over the terrain and reared to a halt before the two escaping prisoners. Zuko, his crimson and black regalia stripped off leaving a simple black muscle shirt and blood red slacks, settled his mount and jumped down from the twenty foot lizard. Naoki followed suit in his scarlet armor and stoic, three-eyed helmet.

Zuko narrowed his eyes with disgust for this unwanted family reunion. "You're little jailbreak's over. You're going right back into a cell and a _lot_ of chains."

"No, we're not," said Azula evenly.

"Naoki, grab him."

The Fire Lord's guard nodded and silently strode toward Ozai. With a determined grimace, Azula let her father's hand go and walked toward the approaching armored Firebender. Naoki hesitated.

The former Fire Nation princess drew herself up as best she could and spoke, trying to keep her voice from cracking. "Zuko, why are you doing this?"

"I'm not playing your mind games, Azula."

"You just locked us away. How could you do that?" It was no use. She couldn't keep her voice from breaking.

"Easily. All I ever had to do was touch my face to find reason to lock him up. And you, little sister, wasn't it you who celebrated becoming an only child by trying to blow me off the side of a cliff!"

"You betrayed me first."

"And so you shot me with lightning?"

"I wouldn't have k…"

"What? You wouldn't have killed me?

"No."

"Oh, please. I'm not so naïve, anymore. Killing just comes naturally to you, like everything else. What's the matter? Afraid I might beat you this time?"

"Zuko, back then, when I attacked you, I was…

"Crazy?"

"I was sad! You left me. You left dad. What's worse, you fought against us.

"Yes and I don't regret that."

"But… we're your family."

"What family? Psychotic, vicious, murderous… You know what? It doesn't matter. Say what you want, but know that you aren't fooling anyone. Nothing you say is worth anything, anymore."

"Stand aside, princess," ordered Naoki, mustering all the authority he could.

"No." Azula's voice was so blunt it almost caused Naoki to stagger backward. He hesitated again.

Zuko did not. The Fire Lord leapt left and brought his foot down in a wide arc that slashed a blade of fire glancing past his guard and toward his estranged little sister. She dodged through the air and rolled into a low squat, narrowly escaping being roasted alive. She stood and prepared herself for another attack, but Zuko wasn't in a fighting stance. He fell to a knee with his hand covering his scarred eye, wincing and growling intensely.

Azula was confused and her brother's howl actually filled her with concern before he screamed and let fly a wild wave of flame at her. She dodged again, but had to deflect the edge of the blast in midair as it passed her. Her recovery was not as smooth as the first time. When she scuttled back into a defensive stance Zuko gave her a look that singed her resolve. His right eye shone with a fiery rage behind it but his left eye… had glazed and was half rolled back into his head.

"This is all your fault!" Zuko screamed. "All of this! These crazy murderers running around blowing people up for no reason! It's because of you two that this kind of madness was born into them! Your twisted lives brought this on the world and now my people have to suffer it! Now I have to suffer it!"

The bearded master Firebender snorted a puff of flame and then began to rotate his arms, fingers pointed. Electricity filled the warm night air and sparks jumped off of the Fire Lords fingers. Azula took a firm stance before her brother sent a bolt of lightning thundering toward her. The searing bolt of blue light scorched the moonlit pall in a flash and entered into Azula. It writhed in her for a long second, boiling in her stomach, then shot out her other hand. She let the bolt crash harmlessly across the deserted stony plain.

Her knees were rubber, but the resolute woman managed to stay on her feet and drink in the astonished gazes of the men around her. "See, Zuko?" she panted. "I don't want to kill you. I just want to be free. We just want to be free. Please."

"No. No, damn it, no!" Zuko yelled and he locked his frenzied eye on Ozai. The furious Fire Lord swept his arms again and gathered the jagged blue fires of the heavens to his fingertips. Azula dashed to get between her father and the simmering deathblow about to be 'leashed on him by his son. She stumbled.

Zuko drew back his fingers and all the power streamed into them before he shot at his father with howling fury. As the energy vaporized the air and snaked toward its target, Azula snatched it from the air and brought it into her womb. The electricity crawled around inside her, trying to escape. She couldn't get it out. She couldn't let it out through her leg and into the ground. It wouldn't go down. Her pained gaze rose to Zuko. Killing him may be the only way to get him to stop. It may be the only way her father and her could be free.

Before she had time to think anymore, Naoki grabbed her hand and the lightning charged into him, rolling around and stewing his body in his armor. The steaming, scarlet form crumpled into a heap on the ground. The dark in the wake of the flash faded. The moon brightened the night. The smell of sparks and roasted meat wafted through the air.

No one had any words except…

"Zuko!" Aang yelled as he swooped down on the family of Firebenders. None of them responded. Upon landing, he snapped his glider-staff shut and surveyed the grizzly scene: the cowering, haggard old Ozai; Zuko fallen to his hands and knees, cursing Naoki's foolhardy protection of him; Azula, too, stunned stock still, her gaze locked on the smoking body next to her and an abysmal pain clenched 'round her heart. Aang shook his head and placed his hand on Azula's shoulder. The woman started and turned to the young Avatar, then collapsed to her knees, clutching at his robes.

"No, please," she wept. "I don't want to go back and I don't want my dad to go back. Don't lock us up again. We won't do anything. We just want to be free. Please, A… Avatar."

"I saw what happened," Aang said quietly. "I'm ashamed I wasn't fast enough to stop it. You realize I can't rightly let someone as dangerous as you run free."

"No, please. Just… just… you can take my bending away!"

Everyone was stunned, not just by who was speaking those words but by how genuine they sounded.

"If you take away my bending, I won't be dangerous anymore. Then you can let me and my father go. We won't be a threat anymore."

"Don't trust her, Aang," Zuko seethed, holding back tears himself. "She's just playing you, like she plays everybody."

"You know I can't just take you at your word, Azula," Aang said calmly. "You know I can't just let you go." Azula broke her pleading gaze from the Avatar's and clenched at his robes and cried into them. "So I'll go with you."

"What?" was the response from all the Firebenders present, with varying inflections.

Aang smiled warmly. "I've been giving a lot of thought to how I can best help people. Sure, I could run around and make sure everyone's behaving all the time, like some kind of all-powerful babysitter, but what good does it really do if all I ever do is loom over the world, scaring it into submission. Then it hit me. The best way to help the world is to help the people and what's the best way to help people?"

He looked down at Azula, who was staring at him with wide, bloodshot eyes, and continued. "It's to help people. People that need the help. Help people one on one, face to face. That's really making a difference. Well, there may be a few times that call for a little Avatar action," he laughed, "but that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to help you. Now, hold still, Azula, and relax."

"D-Does it hurt?" the teary woman quavered.

Aang looked over to Ozai, who started and realized he was the only person alive who had ever had his bending taken from him. "No," he said to his daughter. "No, it doesn't hurt, though you may feel a little… drained afterward."

Aang couldn't help but stifle a laugh. "Just let it happen and all will be well."

The flat stones, green grass, soft earth, awe-struck men, serene sky, and glowing moon all watched as brilliant blue effulgence walled against an ardent flame orange. It illuminated Aang and Azula with a monochromatic luster and then the bright blue swallowed up the orange and the spiritual smell of warm myrrh and cedar covered the land in the wake of the light.

Azula dropped to the ground utterly spent. She felt naked, all her power gone.

"Aang!" called a voice from behind them. It was Katara, riding toward him with Sokka, Toph, Mai and a complement of mounted guards galloping close behind. When Mai saw her husband prostrate and the smoldering body in front of him, she couldn't help but gasp.

"Uhh…" Sokka gaped. "What just happened?"

"Everything's peachy. No trouble," Aang said with a bright, boyish smile.

"'Trouble?' Ozai and Azula are sitting i_right there_/i."

"It's fine, Sokka. Azula and Ozai surrendered."

"Huh," grunted Toph, not too surprised that Aang had sorted it all out before they could even get there. He was the Avatar after all. "Well, that's one problem solved, but we've still got another one waiting."

"An Avatar problem?"

"Oh yeah."

* * *

"I really should have thought this through," worried Da Tan as he and his brother made their way through a narrow stone corridor.

"You did, Da Tan," answered Bai Tan. "You thought it through beautifully."

"But he's insane. He has no regard for life."

"Yes, and a hatred for Firebenders, you said."

"I still think he's too dangerous. Sure he might kill all the Fire Royals, but he could turn on us just like that."

"So long as they die."

"What?"

"And now, with the Avatar here, he's the only force capable of pushing through this coup. That is, if he's as powerful as you say."

"He's plenty powerful."

Bai Tan stomped and the rock wall at the end of the cave slid down, revealing a closet sized gap. He lifted his torch and illuminated a slouched blue figure at the back of the room, a band of rock still tight around its dreadlocked head. It rose slowly and crumbled stone dropped in front of it.

"How did you break that rock?" Da Tan said on the verge of yelling.

Qilaq turned, still blinded by the stone band around his head, and dusted himself off. "Erosion. A little blood. A little time." The stones flew back up at the Earthbender's gesture and clamped Qilaq's arms behind his back.

Bai Tan sighed. "Release him, Da Tan."

"No. I won't give him the chance. I should just crush him."

"He's not going to kill us, not when he hears what we have planed, what we can help him accomplish." The rocks binding Qilaq dropped away. "The death of the Fire Lord. The death of the royal family. The royal advisors, the generals, dead. Imagine it.

"Chaos," Qilaq said with his artful smile.

"Yes, and the Fire Nation will burn itself to ashes."

"The War being over, that's not enough for you?"

"Ha! The War never ended. We may not be fighting outright anymore, but there is still evil in the world, evil that deserves to be punished. Don't you agree?"

"Tell me," Qilaq said with a gesture towards his own face, "do they hurt? The burns?"

Da Tan's eyes narrowed, then he cracked a smile and constricted the rock around Qilaq's head. The swarthy man winced and laughed weakly.

"So, you'll help us?"

"Given the choice between 'kill a bunch of Fire Nation scum' and 'have my head crushed like a melon' I… well, you're smart. What do you think?" Bai Tan, to his brother's visible disapproval, willed the band of rock from their new allies face. Da Tan went tense. Qilaq just smiled. "Well, let's finish this."

They traversed the empty streets and came to a large, odoriferous warehouse at the edge of the capital city crater. As they approached, Qilaq took in the scent of hard packed rice, freshly scythed wheat, crisp cabbage and ground cinnamon all mingled with the stink of sweat moistened soil. Inside were grimy, musty men and a few women standing shoulder to shoulder before a raised platform that the two Earthbenders and the Bloodbender stepped up on. Da Tan stood between his brother and Qilaq, just in case.

The towering Bai Tan wasted no time addressing the chittering congregation of half mad, all dirty, rogue Firebenders. "Today, we topple this flaccid regime. Today, we shatter their feeble yoke strung round our necks and end this conflict. We are Kagutsuchi and, from the ashes of their holocaust, we shall rise." A cheer went up and filled the room like the stench of sweat. "So, are you ready to fight with us?"

"Yep." Qilaq answered softly. He shivered and splattered the colossal man next to him into fluid. The sanguine mass splashed toward Bai Tan and just before contact, froze into a storm of razor sharp shards. The shivers slashed a thousand gashes in the Fire Nation royal advisor. He sputtered and cupped his hands, trying in vain to keep his blood from pouring out of him. Shock and the crushing atmosphere on his exposed lungs silenced him. His malicious intent, his soul, departed and let his corpse fall to the ground with a wet splat.

The crowd froze in shock. A few retching sounds rose from the mob along with a low murmur, the sound of horrified sheep lined before the slaughter blade, buzzed as Qilaq loomed over them.

"After a hundred years of bloody world war, there is finally a modicum of peace and all you can think to do is find another reason, another enemy, to fight and kill. These are your own people: friends and neighbors and administrators that only want to live the same as you. I don't care what excuse you have to justify your actions. Had you given in to their will and chosen peace, the Fire Lord and the Avatar would have welcomed you back with open arms and warm hearts. But, as you can plainly see, I am not so forgiving."

* * *

"Alright, I understand why you left him, Toph, and I know its not your fault that he's gone."

"Hey, I'm just as confused as you, Muscles. I didn't think there were other Earthbenders kicking around the Fire Nation."

"Right, but why are we looking for this guy now, of all the times?" Sokka asked looking up at the Moon, which was still hovering languidly above the horizon as Aang, Toph, Katara and him made their way through the city streets searching for the Bloodbender called Qilaq.

"Sokka, if we wait, he may get away," answered Katara. "The trail will go cold."

"And if we find him now, what then? I'll tell you what, he'll pop us like balloons."

"I'm not going to let that happen."

"It's over here," Aang said running toward the nearby warehouse. "This is where the old guy said he saw someone in blue."

Aang stopped short of the door and the others almost fell over him in their attempt to stop. "Sokka, look," he said pointing to the ground in front of the door.

Sokka crouched down to get a closer look at the spotty trail of goop that led to the crater wall. They were footprints.

Sokka said no more. They all knew what it was. As Aang opened the door the stench rushed out and clouded around them. The young Avatar stepped inside against the stench. It felt like he was walking through a huge puddle covering the entire floor.

Toph covered her nose to shield herself from the cornucopian fragrance, basted in… "What is that? That smell? Is that…"

Aang kindled a flame in his hand and illuminated the cavernous room. "Toph… never in my life have I so envied your lack of sight."

"That bad, huh?" The blind Earthbender felt Katara fall behind her. The woman's breathing was getting faster and faster. Both Sokka and her clamored fervently, tripping over themselves, to get away.

The four of them regained their composure far from the traumatic scene. Aang looked to the trail of bloody footprints.

Sokka noticed his friends determined look. It was a bad sign. Maybe not for Aang, but for somebody. "I'm telling you, if we wait a few hours the sun will rise and he won't be able to Bloodbend anymore. That's when we should get him. We need to wait."

"I'm not going to give him a chance to hurt more people." Blue wings snapped out of Aang's staff. "I can find him faster on my own."

"No, Aang," said Katara with an emphatic shake of her head. "We aren't going to let you face this evil on your own. At least _I _need to be there so I can keep him from Bloodbending."

"Don't worry, Katara. I'm the Avatar." With that, Aang smiled and confidently glided away into the twilight sky.

"But…" Katara thought about what the Bloodbender had said to her. Dread filled her spirit. "Are you not made of water?"

* * *

The Moon sank into the unknowable horizon, into the ocean beyond while Qilaq sat cross-legged on a small platform of ice floating on the warm Fire Nation Sea. His arm wouldn't stop shaking no matter how hard he squeezed it. It wasn't pain, it was just uncontrollable motion. He was still numb.

His holy blood mark rubbed off on his leathery fingers when he touched his bruised forehead, so he split open the tip of his pointer digit and drew a fresh symbol where the other one had worn away. He thought about his dad and how he used to smear that mark on his forehead, then Qilaq's, then he'd smile. The past few months' events played back in his mind. Nuan and Lim were still home, safe. Then he thought about the night's events. Azula's sharp featured face with trembling gold drops set within it.

"At least she'll be happy with her dad. If they don't hunt her, again. Ah, speak of the beast." Aang gently landed on the other side of Qilaq's glacial raft. "The Avatar, I presume."

The young bald boy snapped the wings on his staff closed and planted it on the ice with a hollow thud. "It's over," he sad sternly. "Come with me."

"What's over? And no," Qilaq responded facetiously.

"You've done enough killing."

"Oh, I don't know. There are still a lot of evildoers out there. I could probably kill 'till I'm dead and still not be done."

"I'm not going to let you do this anymore. You need to be put away."

"And you would be the one to do that, now, wouldn't you? Tell me, Avatar, how can you propose to fix everything by just _putting all the bad guys away_? How can you affect any significant change without ever… doing anything final?"

"I restored balance to the world by taking away Ozai's Firebending years ago. I can do the same with you."

Qilaq's brow flicked. "And what does that solve. Am I not still evil? Am I not still a threat? Do you really think that taking away my bending will make the world a safer place."

"Yes."

"No! Robbing me or the Fire Lord or anybody of their power over the elements just makes them less powerful, but no less of a threat. Do you really think I need my bending to kill you, to kill anybody? No, subduing someone does not stamp out their evil. You can't subdue someone's spirit. Someone's will."

"_I_ CAN," said the Avatar in what sounded like a thousand whispers at once.

Qilaq laughed to cover up his nervousness. "That's what I hear. I'd like to see you try it on me," sneered the Bloodbender as he felt the Moon's kiss waning, sinking away.

"You helped free Ozai. You've been with Azula." Qilaq's eye twitched almost imperceptibly. "You've seen the healing power of time. People can come to terms with themselves and the world around them. Peace is possible."

"No, Avatar. I will not Yield. I will do what needs to be done. I will level the scale as quick as I can. I will stamp out evil! I will… wash it away." Qilaq rose to his full height and looked down on the Avatar. Tears rolled down the man's stoic, swarthy face. "I hope you learn from this." There was silence and then…

"Don't tell her." The man's cobalt eye twitched. Aang went to a defensive stance, but before he could call on his Avatar powers, he hesitated.

Qilaq screamed a fearful knell. Blood poured out of his fingertips, his nose, his mouth, his eyes like tears, every pore on his body oozed and then he threw down his arms and exploded, splattering blood all over the pristine white ice sheet and the Avatar himself.

…

Aang remained stone still until he felt the ice beneath his feet begin to crack and melt apart. It jarred him enough that he noticed the warm wetness on him and hurriedly cleaned the splatter off with a gust of air. Still in shock, he flew off to go and do some good.

The night was over, the damage done, and as the sun lifted itself over the curve of the world, all earthy traces of Qilaq melted into the bosom of the ocean, chasing after the drown Moon.

* * *

Azula didn't know what happened to Qilaq and she didn't care. So long as he was out of her life, she was content. Thinking about him caused her guts to clench and bubble. Her father and her arrived in Xidezhen with a casually disguised Avatar escorting them on their way. It wasn't quite how she remembered it, even though it had only been a few weeks since she last set foot in the town. Perhaps it wasn't that the town was different. Rather, she was different. She had no more bending ability. She still had a mean right cross and a quick roundhouse, but fire was beyond her now. It was one of the many foreign forces of the world. Being powerless actually wasn't that bad; being normal actually felt very liberating.

Her dad called her "little princess" once and she snapped at him not to call her that. He agreed and hung his head despondently. Azula regretted the attack, but she justified herself. She wasn't a princess anymore, nor was she "little."

The Avatar was solemn and hadn't spoken much since they had started on their trip, though Azula had a feeling that would change in the near future.

She walked past a familiar hairdresser's salon, through a throng of people who had forgotten her face, and stopped in front of a familiar two-story stone house. Qilaq had mentioned that he didn't actually heal the proprietor and that he was likely dead by now. The thought filled Azula with grief, but that sadness melted away when she heard the sound of boyish laughter coming from inside.

With her spindly, white hand, she opened the door.

* * *

Under the soft song of turtledoves, Nuan sits and stares at a slender little sapling budding all alone in a wide clearing. Plenty of dry, Earth Kingdom sunlight poured down on it, though the source in question was still hiding in the trees.

Someone comes through the brush. "How's it, Nuan?

"Hey, Lim. Didn't find him? I did."

"He came back!"

"For a little, then he left…"

"So, did he say when he was coming back."

"No, he just asked me to check on a little tree he planted. It's doing fine. It's got plenty of sunshine and plenty of room to grow."

"Yeah, he told me about that, right before he left with…"

"Yeah…"

"So, you don't know when he's getting back, huh?"

"I don't."

"Honestly, I hope it's soon, so I can slap some sense into him… with a rock."

"Lim, did I ever tell you how amazing all this is?"

"What?"

"This. Four years and you guys turned a black-glass wasteland back into a forest again. It just didn't seem possible. I was here when the ground still stank like charcoal. I gave up on this place."

"Quitter."

"Yeah, jerk… But you and Qilaq stayed and… and made the land live again."

"Eh, yeah. Well, most of these trees were alive before they made up this forest. We pulled some from all over the Earth Kingdom. From there, it was just a lot of tilling and transplanting. And a lot of sweat from a lot of guys."

"Just that easy, huh?"

"Never said that. Well, easy for me, but, you know…"

"Yes. You are all that is man."

"That's damn right."

Then the sun, like a nip flushed farmer, leaned over the edge of the great green ring of trees, leaves as emeralds letting needle points of light though with glass song as their voice, that swathed the ocean dipped sky smattered with cauliflower wisps that slid along, unsure what shape to take, settling on none.

Nuan smiled at her friend of many years then at the fragile little sapling alone in the earth, watching as every peep the wind delighted its leaves to dance. Give it time and it will grow.


End file.
